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COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY LECTURES 






DYNAMIC PSYCHOLOGY 



BY 



ROBERT SESSIONS WOODWORTH, Ph. D, 

PROFESSOR OF PSYCHOLOGY, COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY 




COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY PRESS 

1918 

All rights reserved 



TyY^riAxi, 



1 , 

, •■0 



Copyright, 1918 
By COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY PRESS 



Set up and electrotyped. Published January, 1918 



m -"4 1918 



©CI.A4924G5 



Columbia Mnibergitp ILutnxt^ 



DYNAMIC PSYCHOLOGY 

THE JESUP LECTURES 
1916-1917 



COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY PRESS 
SALES AGENTS 



NEW YORK 

LEMCKE & BUECHNER 
30-32 West 27TH Street 

LONDON 

HUMPHREY MILFORD 
Amen Corner, E. C. 



CONTENTS 

Page 

T The Modern Movement in Psychology i 

11 '^he Problems and Methods of Psychology 20 

III. Native Equipment oi Man 44 

IV. Acquired or Learned Equipment 77 
V. The Factor of Selection and Control 10^: 
/I. The Factor of Ongina-lity 128 
II. Drive and Mechanism r^ Abnormal Behavior 153 

'II. Drive and Mechanism ni So oi"&l B^i'K/ivior 177 

<'lex 207 



To 
G. M. W. 



PREFACE 

The Jesup Lectures for 19 16-19 17, given at the Amer- 
ican Museum of Natural History with the cooperation of 
Columbia University, are here reproduced with some 
enlargements and modifications. 



DYNAMIC PSYCHOLOGY 

I 

':■■': MODERN MOVEMENT IN PSYCHOLOGY 

Like otb.er ancient branches of learning, psychology 
has undergone in the last hundred years a change and 
development amounting to a revolution. Not only has 
there been rapid gro\\rth in knowledge and in the num- 
ber of persons devoting their time and ingenuity to the 
increase of knowledge in this field, but there has oc- 
curred a remarkable change 'Li attitude, method j and 
standards. The change car be characterized, in a word, 
by saying that psycholog /- has Income an empirical 
science. It has ceased to be a chapter in general philos- 
ophy, and become one of the 'special sciences*. Leaving 
the parental roof, it has followed its older brothers, 
physics, chemistry, and biology, out into the world, and 
set up business for itself. The transformation of psy- 
'^hology is a phase of the general scientific mo\ement 
)roperly to be called the great outstanding fact in the 
nistory of the nineteenth century. As the<ocial = move- 
ment Oi the ]3ast century was a result oi the industrial 
developnu "'T , and this in turn dependent on the progress 
of sciencf atter may rightly be named the real 

fundamental movement of the century. It was the ex- 
tension of scientific interest and method from the inor- 
ganic world to the realm of living creatures, and from 
life in general to the special forms of living activity 
which we call mental, that fructified the mental phllos- 



2 DYNAMIC PSYCHOLOGY 

ophy of the old^r day, and gave us the psychology of 
the present. 

At the opening of the nineteenth century, psychology, 
as we call it today, though the name was then little 
used, could already boast of a long history. It could 
scarcely have been true that the philosophic minds of 
early days should have omitted from their view tht 
mental performances of mankind. Socrates^ in (a,cc, 
^ taught that to 'know thyself* was the orim^e iactor in 
wisdom ; and Aristotle, among the nu /ierous writings in 
which he reduced to order the thought of the ancient 
Greeksj composed a treatise on psychology, the 'science 
of the souF, destined to remain for many centuries 
without a serious rival In the early modern period, 
while ^natural philosophy ', developing a technique of 
its own, split off fro' i the parent stem and became the 
science of physics, ^mental philosophy' remained bound 
up with general philosophy to such a degree that now 
it is almost irrtpossible, in reading the philosophers, 
to disentangle their psychology from their teachings on 
logic, ethics, and the criticism of knowledge. 

Locke, the founder of the British empirical schd^l 
in philosophy, wrote an Essay Concerning Human 
Under standing f a title appropriate, one would suppose, 
for a chapter in psychology. But Locke's d<>rainant 
interest was not precisely psychological; h»i was less 
concerned with the actual process of knowing than with 
the validity of knowledge, and was there/cvr^- contented 
with a rather sketchy treatment of the processes them- 
selves. Rejecting the view, strongly held in his day, 
thai certain fundamental ideas were innate, he taughl 
that all ideas are ultimately derived from the indi- 



MODERN MOVEMENT IN PSYCHOLOGY 3 

vidual's experience, and have accordingly n.j more 
v^alidity than the experiences on which they are based. 
Mmple ideas of color, form, solidity, number, etc., come 
us through the senses from external objects, while 
iiple ideas of remembering, thinking, and other mental 
operations come to us from the occurrence of these 
• operations within us. These simple ideas we compound, 
compare ard abstract, and thus acquire the great 
variety of onr complex ideas. Knovv ledge is the per- 
ception oi the agreement or disagreement between two 
ideas; it is therefofejimited to our ideas, as these are 
(limited to our experience ; and it is further limited b}^ our 
-nability to discover agreement or disagreement between 
many of the ideas wliich we possess. Further, acci- 
dental coupling of ideas in our c-xperience may make it 
impossible for us to see disagreement and incoherence 
v\' here such exists ; and 'enthusiasm' may lead us to make 
assertions where we have no real perception. These ex- 
erpts from Locke illustrate the trend of his interest; 
s attention passes lightly over the actual processes of 
•oiight in its eagerness to evaluate their results; yet 
)cke is undoubtedly an important landn^ark in the 
^ regress t vvards psychology. 

This absorption in the problem of the vaHdity of 
knowledge dominated Hume, also, and the rest, of 
Locke's successors, both British and continental, down 
to and into the nineteenth century. They had also an 
interest in human conduct, but it was rather an ethical 
interest, concerned with what man ought to do, than 
a psychological, concerned with what he ^loes; or the 
latter, only as a basis for the former. True psychologi- 
cal knowledge was, however, slowly accumulating, and 



4 DYNAMIC PSYCHOLOGY 

the time seemed ripe for the splitting off from philos- 
ophy of a branch of study which, leaving aside the 
philosophical implications of the information gained, 
should set itself whole-heartedly to the task of exam- 
ining the mental activities of men. One thing v ? ; 
necessary before such a splitting-off could occur—., 
recognition of the urgent need for more facts, and ior 
fruitful and trustworthy methods of obtaining the facts. 
Many of these psychologists, or philosopl'ers, of the 
pre-scientific age were distinctly empirical in tendency, 
and cannot fairly be accused of 'spinning their theories 
out of their own heads'. I'hey endeavored to utilize 
such facts as they knew, and to base their conclusions 
on their experience; but tiiey did not realize their great 
need for more facts and mure experience. ( They followed 
the natural tendency to draw conclusions from past ex- 
perience, while the modem scientific standard requires 
that not conclusions, but only hypotheses, should be 
drawn from past f xperience, the conclusion to follow 
upon the testing of the hypothesis by new facts. Ip 
other words, a scientific conclusion is a hy^po thesis thi«' 
has proved successful in predicting hitherV) unknown 
facts.) Tliis reserve in accepting the suggestions of past 
experience, and this zeal for new facts to test definite 
questions, psychology had to acquire before becoming a 
true science. The new attitude, however, did not arise 
within the ranks of the philosophical psychologists, but 
was imported from wit! 5 out. 

The push from outside that changed the course of 
psychology came from physiology, itself an ancient 
branch of medicine tha^ had undergone a revolution at 
about the beginning of the nineteenth century, and had 



MODERN MOVEMENT IN PSYCHOLOGY 5 

split off from its parent stem, becoming distinctively 
and actively an experimental science. The idea that 
the functions of the bodily organs were to be learned by 
experiment took hold early in the century, and many 
experiments were tried on the muscles, glands, heart, 
nerves, and brain. Among the organs offering them- 
selves for such study were the eye, ear, and other sense 
organs ; and in fact they were attacked early rather than 
late by the physiologists, because their action could 
largely be studied in the human subject, without opera- 
tions of a surgical nature such as are necessary in exam- 
ining most of the organs. It was simply necessary, for 
example, to have a trustworthy observer tell what he 
saw when the physical conditions of vision were ar- 
ranged in some definite way to test a particular ques- 
tion. Newton's decomposition of white light by use of 
the prism had been followed up by the students of 
natural philosophy, and about the year 1800 Thomas 
Young had described some very important experiments 
on the mechanism of the eye, and propounded a theory 
of color vision which still numbers many adherents. 
Other physicists, among whom may be mentioned 
Benjamin Franklin and Count Rumford, had inci- 
dentally made important observations on the eye and 
its sensations. In the early decades of the nineteenth 
century there was a great increase in the amount of work 
done upon the eye, and many new facts were added to 
the store of knowledge, while at the same time many 
fresh problems came into view. The invention, as the 
outcome of physiological experiments, of the stereo- 
scope by Wheatstone in 1833, and of a rudimentary 
form of the moving picture machine by Plateau in 1832, 



6 DYNAMIC PSYCHOLOGY 

may be taken as illustrating the importance of the work 
done by the physicists and physiologists of this period 
in preparing the way for a science of psychology; since, 
evidently, the problems raised by the successful work- 
ings of these instruments — as to how, in the one case, 
two properly chosen flat pictures or diagrams, one 
placed before each eye, can create so strong an impres- 
sion of solidity — and as to how, in the other case, a 
rapid sequence of pictures of an object in different posi- 
tions can make us see the object in motion — evidently 
such problems are psychological. 

Similar, though less extensive work was being done 
on the sense of hearing; and Weber, about 1825, made 
a number of important discoveries regarding the sense 
of touch and the perception of distance, temperature, 
and weight upon the skin. Weber is an especially 
notable figure in the history of psychology for his experi- 
ments on the perception of differences and the general- 
ization he drew from them. A small difference between 
two weights, he found, could be observed provided the 
weights themselves were small ; but as they were made 
heavier, the difference between them had to be pro- 
portionately increased in order to remain perceptible. 
He concluded from this and similar facts that the per- 
ception of difference in magnitude is a perception of the 
ratio of the magnitudes, and not of the absolute amount 
of difference between them. This generalization, later 
named 'Weber's law*, came to be regarded as one of 
the chief comer-stones of the edifice of experimental 
psychology. 

In view of this large growth of what was really psy- 
chological information in the hands of the physiologists. 



MODERN MOVEMENT IN PSYCHOLOGY 7 

and in view, on the other side, of the increasing tendency 
within the ranks of the philosophers for some to spe- 
cialize in the study of mental philosophy, we might 
have expected a union of these two tendencies before 
the middle of the century into a science of the modern 
type. As a matter of fact, probably because experi- 
mental methods were not yet ready for an attack on the 
problems most interesting to the mental philosophers, 
such a union did not occur for another generation, 
though meanwhile we find the mental philosophers 
becoming more empirical, as evidenced by the works of 
Bain, and a section of the physiologists becoming more 
psychological, as seen especially in the case of Helm- 
holtz. The latter, a scientific student of the first rank, 
worked over the whole existing stock of knowledge on 
vision and hearing, testing everything for himself, and 
adding many fresh discoveries; and summed up the 
whole in two great books, one on vision and one on hear- 
ing, published about the year i860. He also, in the 
course of an investigation into the speed of nerve trans- 
mission, gave the first measurement of the 'reaction 
time', a subject of study which was at once taken up 
with energy by the Dutch physiologist Bonders. 

Another name to be mentioned along with Helmholtz 
is that of Fechner, a professor of physics, with varied 
interests, which included a somewhat mystical vein of 
philosophy. While ruminating over the problem of the 
relation of the physical and psychical worlds, he came 
across the work of Weber, already mentioned, on the 
perception of small differences in weights and other 
physical stimuli, and conceived the idea that this type 
of experiment afforded a means of establishing definite 



8 DYNAMIC PSYCHOLOGY 

quantitative relations between the stimulus, represent- 
ing the physical world, and the resulting sensation, 
representing the psychical. He accordingly began ex- 
tensive experimentation along this line, devised appro- 
priate methods for conducting such experiments and 
for treating their results, and after years of labor pub- 
lished in i860 a book which he called Psychophysics. 
Although this work has not been generally accepted as 
possessing the philosophical significance which its 
author intended and indicated by its title, it proved to 
be of great importance on the psychological side, be- 
cause it showed the way of accurate experiment on cer- 
tain psychological problems. Ten or fifteen years later, 
the same author applied somewhat similar methods of 
experiment to questions of esthetics, and proposed that 
a science of esthetics should be developed 'from below 
up\ by starting with experimental determinations of 
preferences for colors, shapes, and other simple objects, 
and working up towards the complex objects of art. 

The situation in 1870, then, was about this. We have 
the mental philosophers, best represented by Bain or 
by the Herbartians in Germany, disposed to devote 
their attention to the senses and intellect, the emotions 
and will, as matters deserving of study for their own 
sakes without regard to ulterior philosophical considera- 
tions ; and on the other side we have a large and grow- 
ing fund of information on the senses and sense per- 
ception, the speed of simple mental operations, and 
related topics, and we have a number of experimental 
procedures well worked out and known to be usable. 
The man in whom these two streams most definitely 
came together was Wundt. Beginning as a physiologist, 



MODERN MOVEMENT IN PSYCHOLOGY 9 

largely under the influence of Helmholtz and Fechner, 
but also of the philosopher Herbart, he soon switched to 
what he named 'physiological psychology', meaning 
by that term a psychology studied by the method of 
physiology, namely, by experiment, and taking full 
account of the relevant information to be had from 
physiology. He published a book with this title in 1874. 
Soon after that, he became professor of philosophy in 
the University of Leipzig, where he established in 1879 
the first definitely recognized psychological laboratory, 
and began to send out pupils trained in experimental 
psychology to found laboratories in other universities. 
Many were founded in the next fifteen years, especially 
around 1890. It would, however, be a mistake to con- 
clude that Wundt was the sole founder of experimental 
psychology; for similar beginnings were made almost 
simultaneously with his, at Berlin and Gottingen, and 
at Harvard and Johns Hopkins, by men not pupils of 
Wundt but influenced directly by Fechner, Helmholtz, 
and other physiologists. 

The scope of experimental psychology in 1880 was not 
by any means as wide as that of mental philosophy. 
The physicists and physiologists had shown how to 
study the senses and certain sorts of sense perception 
and how to measure the time of simple mental opera- 
tions; and there were Fechner's methods for studying 
esthetic preferences. There was little indication that 
experiment could be fruitfully applied to memory, 
thinking, will and emotion, or several other matters of 
great psychological interest; and experimental psychol- 
ogy accordingly appeared at first as a rather limited and 
technical part of the whole subject. It was not long, 



10 DYNAMIC PSYCHOLOGY 

however, before Ebbinghaus introduced his memory 
experiment, the germ of a vast amount of subsequent 
work. Somewhat later, American psychologists found 
practice and habit formation to be fruitful fields for 
experimental study; and, all in all, the learning process 
has distinctly come within the scope of experimental 
psychology. Mental imagery and the association of 
ideas have also been found amenable to experiment ; also 
feeling and emotion; and even thinking and willing, 
though elusive, have been grappled with by experi- 
mentalists, not without some measure of success. In 
short, the experimental psychologists of the present day 
are not disposed to lay down their arms before any 
enemy; and experimental psychology, from being a 
specialized branch of the science, has won recognition 
as a method of study available throughout the whole. 
Not, indeed, the only good method of obtaining psy- 
chological facts, it is probably the most useful of all 
available methods. What modem standards require 
is not necessarily the use of experiment, but the use of 
some definite and trustworthy means of observing facts, 
and the checking up of any hypothesis by definite 
observations. 

If the foregoing sketch of the origin and development 
of the modem movement in psychology were left as it 
stands, unsupplemented, it would perhaps represent 
the generally received view of the movement, but it 
would be quite misleading in important respects. It 
would err by the omission of certain important contribu- 
tions. The new psychology did not arise wholly from 
the union of mental philosophy with physiology, but its 
origin was considerably more complex. 



MODERN MOVEMENT IN PSYCHOLOGY 1 1 

Almost simultaneously with Fechner's Psychophysics 
appeared (in 1859) a still greater book, Darwin's 
Origin of Species. The tremendous interest in biologi- 
cal evolution that followed could not fail to spread 
to the sphere of mental development. Darwin him- 
self wrote on the Expression of the Emotions in Man 
and Animals, and Romanes and others early made 
special studies of mental evolution. At first, the facts 
relied upon in this line of study were of the anecdotal 
sort, and it remained for Thomdike, in 1899, to point 
out the fallacy of this kind of evidence, and to intro- 
duce the experimental study of animal intelligence, 
thus signaling the union of experimental psychology 
with the biological interest in mental development. 

Evolution was concerned with the development of the 
individual as well as of the race; and Darwin himself 
made the first systematic study of the mental develop- 
ment of a child. Stanley Hall early made this field 
peculiarly his own, and a mass of observations has been 
accumulated which has no direct relation to experi- 
mental psychology, being controlled rather by the 
biological interest in evolution. Of late, however, con- 
siderable use has come to be made of experiment in the 
study of child psychology. 

Evolution was much concerned with heredity and 
variation. Gal ton, a close associate of Darwin, de- 
serves to be mentioned alongside of Wundt as one of the 
founders of modem psychology. He studied individual 
differences in imagery and other mental traits, collected 
data on the heredity of mental abilities, and sought to 
discover how far heredity and how far environment are 
responsible for the individual's peculiar character and 



12 DYNAMIC PSYCHOLOGY 

mentality. He introduced important methods for the 
study of variation and the relationships of traits. In 
this he has been followed by Karl Pearson and many 
others. For the purpose of studying mental differences, 
Galton introduced the conception of mental tests, thus 
establishing connections between experimental psychol- 
ogy and the biological interest. In this line he was im- 
mediately followed by Cattell, and later by a host of 
psychologists, as the fruitfulness of this line of study 
has become evident. Looking over the whole field of 
psychological investigation at the present time, one gets 
the impression that, while the dominant method of 
observation has been derived, as already shown, from 
physiology, a large share of the interests involved are 
to be traced back to biology and particularly the study 
of evolution. 

Somewhat akin to the biological source of interest is 
the anthropological, both being concerned with mental 
development in the race. It was apparently the greatly 
increased knowledge of languages, and the discovery of 
close relationships between Hindu and European lan- 
guages, that gave the start to this line of psychological 
study. Since language, it was said, is the expression of 
-thought, the history of human thought could be traced 
in terms of the history of language and by the methods 
of comparative philology. About the middle of the last 
century, efforts were made by Geiger, Max Miiller, 
Gladstone, and others, to write chapters in the history 
of the human mind on the basis of philology and com- 
parative mythology. In the sixties, there was even 
published for several years in Germany a journal of 
'folk psychology', perhaps the first scientific journal to 



MODERN MOVEMENT IN PSYCHOLOGY 13 

bear the name of psychology. The methods and pre- 
suppositions of the older folk psychologists have not 
stood the test of time ; for language, it is now recognized, 
is by no means a clear and unequivocal expression of 
thought and consciousness, and the easy transmission 
of a language from one race to another makes it im- 
possible to trace racial by linguistic history. Yet the 
contribution of folk psychology to the general modem 
movement cannot be ignored. It resembles the other 
factors in the total movement at least in this, that it 
makes its start from empirically determined facts. It 
embraces a great mass of data, which, when good 
methods are devised for their utilization, can hardly fail 
to enrich very greatly the science of psychology. 

Yet another important contribution to the modem 
movement remains to be mentioned. The origin of 
abnormal or pathological psychology is quite inde- 
pendent of all the influences that have already been 
mentioned; and we have here another stream of in- 
fluence coming from medicine. 

Prior to 1791, very little scientific interest had been 
aroused by the insane. Neglected or confined as dan- 
gerous, they were in a deplorable condition. In this 
year, Pinel made the first great step in reform at the 
Salpetriere In Paris, by striking the chains from the 
inmates, as depicted in a famous painting. In other 
words, he diminished the amount of restraint, and 
sought for a more humane and rational treatment, being 
guided by a conception of the insane as sick people who 
needed medical attention rather than punishment. 
Thus was bom a new specialty in medicine, that of 
ps^/chiatry or the treatment of mental disorders. The 



14 DYNAMIC PSYCHOLOGY 

reform spread quickly to other countries, and gained 
force from decade to decade, though even today its 
work is not complete, since there are localities, and some 
even in our own country, where the treatment of the 
insane has not advanced much beyond the eighteenth 
century standard. From the psychological point of 
view, the important thing is that, along with the new 
treatment, there went a new attention to the phenomena 
of insanity, a recognition of different types, a tracing of 
the course of the disorder, and search for its origin. 
Along in the middle of the century, we find books 
written by Moreau de Tours and by Maudsley that 
are essentially books on abnormal psychology; and 
attention to this side of the matter has greatly increased 
of late. Within the last few decades, also, this move- 
ment has established connections with experimental 
psychology, till we find psychologists attached to the 
staff of some of the progressive hospitals for the insane. 
Near the year 1800, again, we find the first trace of 
scientific interest in the mentally defective, who had 
previously been almost wholly neglected by society. 
Itard conceived that an idiot might be taught if only 
the methods of teaching were well chosen ; and though 
his attempt was not very successful, it aroused interest 
and led the way to further study at the hands of physi- 
cians. Seguin, somewhat after the middle of the cen- 
tury, made a serious and rather successful effort to 
devise methods for teaching the mentally defective such 
things as they are capable of learning. As the result of 
such work, the treatment of this class by society has 
become much more humane and intelligent, though 
much remains to be done before our manner of dealing 



MODERN MOVEMENT IN PSYCHOLOGY 15 

with the defective shall reach the level of our treatment 
of the insane. Two points in the recent history of the 
matter are of special interest to us here. When Binet 
devised his very useful set of tests for the determination 
of the level of intelligence and the diagnosis of mental 
defect, he, once more, established connections between 
the experimental and the pathological streams in the 
modem psychological movement. And the recent 
development of interest in eugenics, primarily a bio- 
logical problem, but spreading to psychology and espe- 
cially to the question of mental defect and its heredity, 
has brought three streams together in what bids fair to 
be a very important activity. 

The history of hypnotism, as of psychotherapy gener- 
ally, is of interest in relation to the development of 
modem psychology. Without considering the various 
practices which, under many names in many peoples, 
are essentially the same as hypnotism, we may begin 
with the 'animal magnetism' of Mesmer. This 
Viennese physician, a man not without scientific bent, 
though the mystical element was more pronounced in 
his make-up, put forward about 1770 the conception 
(in part an old conception) that a magnetic influence 
passing from one person to another was capable of pro- 
ducing curative effects. He found this magnetism 
specially strong in himself, and claimed to heal by its 
means. Migrating to Paris in 1778, he aroused great 
excitement by his seances, staged much like those of a 
magician, in which he produced trances and convulsions 
in some of his more susceptible subjects, and apparently 
cured some ailments which would now be classed a:s 
nervous. A royal commission, including Lavoisier and 



i6 DYNAMIC PSYCHOLOGY 

Benjamin Franklin, investigated him, and pronounced 
against his doctrine of animal magnetism, while leaving 
the question of the reality of his cures unsettled. The 
practice of mesmerism went on without scientific recog- 
nition, till about 1830, when a second commission, ap- 
pointed this time by the Paris Academy of Medicine, 
investigated it and reported that some of the cures were 
genuine, not pronouncing on the theory of animal mag- 
netism. Meanwhile, some of the outstanding facts of 
the matter, the trance state, with its high suggestibility, 
and frequent absence of memory for it afterwards, had 
been definitely observed. A little later, Braid, an Eng- 
lish surgeon, gave the first really scientific account of the 
condition of hypnosis, with a more rational interpreta- 
tion than that of animal magnetism. From this time 
on, some use of hypnotism was made by nerve special- 
ists ; but it was not till the time of Charcot and Liebault, 
in the seventies, that the matter was thoroughly 
threshed out and its psychological interest emphasized. 
Quite a school of younger men, following Charcot, en- 
deavored to obtain psychological information by the 
use of hypnosis as a method of investigation. 

Charcot's name is prominent also in the history of the 
neuroses, hysteria especially; and his pupils, among 
whom Janet and Freud are noteworthy, have made very 
serious attempts to fathom the psychology of these 
bafHing conditions and derive thence information for 
normal psychology as well; since it has been felt that 
these abnormal mental conditions simply show normal 
functions acting in an exaggerated and unbalanced way. 

Of recent years, psychology has been undergoing a 
new influence. While the influences already mentioned 



MODERN MOVEMENT IN PSYCHOLOGY 17 

have come from the older sciences, these recent influ- 
ences have come from the practical field, and consist of 
demands upon psychology to rise to its opportunities 
for practical application. The field in which psychology 
has been longest and most extensively applied is educa- 
tion. From a condition in which it simply attempted to 
make use of the existing conclusions of general psychol- 
ogy, educational psychology is developing into a condi- 
tion in which it makes its own experiments to solve its 
own problems, and thus incidentally contributes to the 
general store of psychological knowledge instead of 
simply drawing upon it. Industrial psychology, busi- 
ness psychology, legal and forensic psychology have not 
yet reached the stage of independent development, but, 
in view of the strong demands they are making on the 
psychologist, it is likely that there will soon be special- 
ists in these branches and that their work will contribute 
much of general psychological interest; and thus the 
currents that go to make up the psychological stream 
will in the future be even more numerous and varied 
than they are today. 

With so many streams entering into it, modem psy- 
chology is itself necessarily a complex affair. In spite 
of its complexity, however, there is a strong tendency 
for the different streams to come together. They tend 
to come together in the matter of method, in that the 
method of experiment, itself diversified to meet the 
various demands made on it, is becoming more and more 
widely adopted. To a considerable degree, also, the 
diverse interests of psychology show a tendency to unite 
in a general adoption of the genetic problem as the com- 
mon aim of all branches of investigation. The problems 



l8 DYNAMIC PSYCHOLOGY 

of origin and development, obviously the main interest 
in child psychology and the study of mental heredity, 
as well as in the manifold work on the process of learn- 
ing, have also come to be the chief interest in pathologi- 
cal psychology. We wish not only to examine the mo- 
mentary state of a deluded individual and discover 
whether he really reasons correctly from false premises, 
but we wish to go behind the moment and discover how 
he came to accept those false premises and allow them to 
become so firmly fixed within him. Even within the 
traditional field of experimental psychology, there is an 
increasing tendency to examine a performance in its 
development rather than simply in its perfected form. 
Perhaps no one has better expressed in his writings 
the full scope and tendency of modern psychology than 
the late William James. He took as his background the 
older mental philosophy, especially of the English asso- 
ciationist school, being however keenly aware of its 
shortcomings and of certain necessary complements to 
be found in the mental philosophy of the Germans. 
Coming into psychology from the physiological labo- 
ratory, he retained the physiological point of view, was 
entirely hospitable to the new experimental psychology, 
and very early conducted experiments of his own. He 
was not, indeed, especially impressed by much of the 
earlier experimental work of Fechner and of Wundt 
and his pupils, which seemed to him rather formal and 
pedantic and lacking in real psychological insight; and 
he used to speak rather depreciatingly of 'brass instru- 
ment psychology*. Yet he gave it a hearing and ex- 
tracted what benefit he could from it. His interest in 
the problems of genetics is seen in his specially excellent 



MODERN MOVEMENT IN PSYCHOLOGY 19 

chapters on instinct and habit, and in the whole tenor 
of his work. With the French school of abnormal psy- 
chology he was keenly sympathetic, and he was able to 
find much of value in their works. All in all, he was 
evidently a good internationalist in his science, as in- 
deed every good psychologist must be. Better than any 
other book, his great work on the Principles of Psy- 
chology can be taken as at once a summing up of the 
older psychology and an introduction to the modem 
point of view. 



II 

THE PROBLEMS AND METHODS OF 
PSYCHOLOGY 

One curious fact about present-day psychology is that 
it is uncertain, or seems so, as to its proper Hne of study. 
You will find in current discussions a great deal of dis- 
agreement as to the correct aim and definition of the 
science, and as to the method of investigation that it 
ought to employ. The question of method is bound up 
with the question of aim. Some will tell you that the 
only proper aim of psychology is to reach a scientific 
analysis and description of consciousness, and that the 
method to be employed, accordingly, must be self- 
observation or introspection ; while others will deny that 
consciousness can be studied scientifically or that intro- 
spection is a valid method of study, and will submit, 
in their turn, that the aim of psychology should be to 
describe human behavior, and its method the objective 
examination of behavior. To an outsider this unsettled 
state of affairs naturally appears as a sign of inherent 
weakness, and it is so regarded by some apprehensive 
psychologists. Probably it must be admitted to be a 
sign of immaturity ; but it is a less serious symptom than 
at first appears. Psychologists are not marking time 
while these theoretical questions are discussed ; but each 
is attacking the problem that appeals to him by the 
method adapted to that problem. After all, though at- 
tempts to define the scope of a science are not without 



PROBLEMS OF PSYCHOLOGY 21 

value, they are not fundamental. A science does not 
take its start from a definition, as if its task were as- 
signed to it by some higher authority, biit it proceeds 
from problem to problem, often taking unexpected 
turns as the knowledge gained opens vistas of knowledge 
still to be sought. The best definition of a science, at 
any time, would be derived by induction from the work 
already accomplished in it, together with the problems 
offering a fair prospect of solution. Obtained in this 
way, the definition of current psychology would make 
mention of both consciousness and behavior, since both 
are being fruitfully and hopefully studied. 

Let us see what the study of consciousness comes to in 
practice. It is clear that the field of consciousness in- 
cludes not only emotions and ideas, but also sense ex- 
perience, and, in fact, most progress has been made in 
the study of sensory experience, because of the fact that 
it can be aroused at will by appropriate physical stimuli, 
and thus readily made the object of experimental study. 
The first step in a description of sensation has been 
classification, the grouping of the various sensory ex- 
periences according to their likenesses and differences. 
Thus, within the domain of light sensations, we can 
distinguish a chromatic or color group from the colorless 
black-white-gray group, and within the domain of 
sound we distinguish tones and noises. Exploration of 
the skin reveals pressure, warmth, cold, and pain sensa- 
tions ; and exploration of the sense of smell enables us to 
distinguish, rather roughly perhaps, eight or ten classes 
of odors. 

A second step in the description of sensations can be 
taken in some cases only ; it consists in the arrangement 



22 DYNAMIC PSYCHOLOGY 

of a group of sensations in a definite order according to 
their degrees of resemblance. The tones can be ar- 
ranged in order from high to low, the colors in order from 
red, through orange, yellow, greenish yellow, green, 
bluish green, blue, violet, and purple, back to red again. 
Any class of sensations can be arranged in the order of 
their intensity, as colors from bright to dark, tones from 
loud to soft, odors from strong to faint. Evidently this 
arrangement in order, where it can be carried out, is 
much more satisfactory as a description than the mere 
separation into disconnected classes. 

A third step in the description of sense experience Is 
analysis, of which a good example is afforded by the 
tastes. We commonly assign a distinct taste to almost 
every article of food, but the simple experiment of hold- 
ing the nose while tasting proves that most of these 
characteristic flavors are really additions to taste proper 
contributed by the sense of smell. Coffee and a solution 
of quinine, apple pulp and onion pulp, cannot be told 
apart when the nose is held, their differences being 
really in odor and not in taste proper. Such flavors are 
therefore compounds. But sweet, sour, bitter, and salty 
are true tastes, not abolished by excluding the sense of 
smell; and, moreover, no effort to analyze them has 
been successful, so that they are accepted as the ele- 
mentary tastes. Other similar analyses have been suc- 
cessfully made, especially in the realm of tones. De- 
scriptive psychology aims to discover all the elementary 
sensations and to show which of them enter into each 
compound of sensations ; in other words, it seeks to ac- 
complish something similar to the work of analytical 
chemistry. 



PROBLEMS OF PSYCHOLOGY 23 

A fourth step in the descriptive psychology of sensa- 
tion is to examine the modes of combination of the 
elements. Two such modes may perhaps be recognized, 
the blends and the patterns. When two or more sensa- 
tions blend, the compound is a sensation of the same 
general sort as the elements, and appears, indeed, at 
first inspection to be an element, though properly 
directed attention may be able to pick out of it its con- 
stituent parts. The taste of lemonade is a blend of 
sweet, sour, lemon odor and cold ; but to the one who is 
drinking, it is usually just the taste of lemonade, no 
more and no less. A pattern is a combination in which 
the constituents retain their individuality, or much of 
it, because they exist side by side in space, or one after 
the other in time; while, nevertheless, the combination 
has a certain unity, a specific character of its own, not of 
the same general sort as that of its constituents. A 
number of bits of color side by side give a pattern ; and 
the pattern has a specific character; but we should not 
think of calling the pattern itself a color, as we call the 
blend of tastes a taste. A melody is a pattern; and a 
still better example is a heard word, composed of vowel 
and consonantal sounds in a certain order, but heard as 
a unit. 

As can be seen from the foregoing sketch of the work 
accomplished in describing sensory experience, consider- 
able progress has been made in this particular problem. 
A similar problem is the description of the conscious 
processes of memory, imagination, thinking, emotion, 
etc., but here the undertaking has been found much 
more difficult, partly because individuals differ much 
more here than in sensation, and partly because the 



24 DYNAMIC PSYCHOLOGY 

processes cannot, be aroused with the same certainty 
when desired and thus are not so subject to experimental 
control. Good work has been done on mental imagery, 
and suggestive beginnings have been made in a descrip- 
tion of the conscious process of thinking; but, on the 
whole, progress has been relatively slow, and there is 
much disagreement as to the proper interpretation of the 
results thus far obtained. 

Casting our eye civer the results and prospects of 
psychology considered as a study of consciousness, the 
doubt arises whether this is, after all, the psychology 
that we came out to see. It is impossible, indeed, that 
a description of consciousness, however perfect, should 
fully satisfy the psychological interest and curiosity. 
It cannot pretend to tell us all we wish to know of men- 
tal life and performance. Its most obvious deficiency 
lies in the fact that mental processes are not entirely 
conscious, so that consciousness gives but a fragmentary 
picture of the real course of events in perceiving, re- 
membering, thinking, or acting. A few instances will 
make this plain. An act, at first unfamiliar and exe- 
cuted with consciousness of its several parts, becomes 
with repetition fluent and automatic, and attended by 
little consciousness. Whkt shall we do in such a case? 
Shall we let the psychologist study the doing of the 
unfamiliar act, but turn over the study of the well- 
trained act to some other science, as physiology? This 
would be an ill-conceived division of labor, since it 
would prevent the genesis of the well-trained act from 
being followed and understood. Again, any complex 
mental act, though partly in clear consciousness, is in 
part only dimly and in part not at all conscious; yet 



PROBLEMS OF PSYCHOLOGY 25 

certainly the act should be studied as a whole. To con- 
fine our attention to consciousness would be like describ- 
ing the shifting views of the kaleidoscope, without any 
consideration of the action of the machine. Though 
entertaining, it would be, on the whole, rather trifling. 
Another difificulty with psychology conceived as the 
science of consciousness has been felt most keenly by 
the students of animal psychology. A science should be 
based on as direct observations as possible, while the 
animal psychologist was in the unsatisfactory position 
of being entirely unable to observ^e the animal conscious- 
ness directly. This would not be so bad if he had the 
means of inferring the consciousness of the animal with 
any certainty from its actions; but such inferences are 
based wholly on analogy and not on logically sound 
premises. We observe the animal behaving in a certain 
manner, and reason that if we behaved in such a way in 
similar circumstances, our conscious experience would 
be thus and so; and therefore the animal's consciousness 
must be thus and so. But this is no sure inference, since 
the major premise that it requires, to the effect that 
such an act is always attended by such consciousness, 
could not be known to be true except by observation 
of the consciousness of animals attending their acts. 
Aside from this logical difficulty, there is in detail very 
great chance of error when animal behavior is inter- 
preted anthropomorphically. The animal psychologist 
is confronted by a dilemma: if he would produce psy- 
chology, he is told that he must describe the conscious- 
ness of animals; but if he attempts to do so, he ceases to 
be scientific. Meanwhile, he is perfectly aware within 
himself that he is making scientific observations on the 



26 DYNAMIC PSYCHOLOGY 

actions of animals, and that the actions he is studying 
are in the same general class as the mental accomplish- 
ments of men, though less elaborate. 

Let us examine for a few moments the character of 
the work done by the animal psychologists. Of recent 
years it is almost wholly carried on by experimental 
methods. 

One line of study has been concerned with the in- 
stinctive or native powers of different animals. Spald- 
ing sought to discover whether flight was instinctive in 
birds, by taking the young, just hatched, and confining 
them in little boxes too narrow to allow them to stretch 
their wings and so constructed that the little bird could 
not see out and possibly learn from the sight of older 
birds flying. He kept the birds in good condition in 
these boxes till the age at which the young of that species 
normally begin to fly, and, on then releasing them, 
found that they flew promptly and well, steering and 
avoiding obstacles as cleverly as could be desired. 
Evidently, flight was not learned but instinctive. 

Thomdike placed a newly hatched chick on a plat- 
form at varying distances from the ground, and found 
the chick to hop down without hesitation when the 
elevation was small, with hesitation and spreading of 
the wings when the elevation was medium, and not at 
all when it was great, thus showing an innate sense of 
distance, a reaction to the third dimension. 

Scott brought up young Baltimore orioles without 
giving them any opportunity of hearing the song of 
older birds of their kind, and found that the young de- 
veloped songs of their own, not identical with those 
common to the species; he concluded, therefore, that 



PROBLEMS OF PSYCHOLOGY 2"] 

the particular song of the species was not determined by 
innate tendencies, but was learned by the young from 
the older birds, and handed down from generation 
to generation. 

Another line of study in animal psychology has been 
concerned with the intelligence, or ability to learn, of 
various animals. A typical instance is afforded by 
Thomdike's puzzle-box experiment on cats and dogs. 
A hungry cat was placed in a box or cage, through the 
slats of which it could see or smell a bit of food placed 
outside. The door of the cage could be opened from 
inside by turning a button or operating some other 
simple catch. The cat immediately began vigorous 
efforts to get out to the food. It tried to squeeze be- 
tween the slats, bit or clawed at anything loose, and, 
in the course of these varied attempts, hit upon the 
catch, opened the door and got its food. On a fresh 
trial, the cat went through the same style of perform- 
ance ; but on repeated trials its time gradually decreased 
by elimination of more and more of the useless move- 
ments, till finally it reacted to the situation by going 
straight to the catch and opening the door; and in fur- 
ther trials it continued to react in this way, showing 
that it had learned the trick. Something of its manner 
of learning it could be inferred from its behavior. It 
gave no sign of any internal process of working the 
thing out, for it was in constant motion, passing im- 
petuously from one feature of the cage to another that 
aroused its tendencies to react. Moreover, the process 
of learning was gradual, as shown by the times of suc- 
cessive trials, and seemed to consist in the gradual weak- 
ening and elimination of those tendencies to react that 



28 DYNAMIC PSYCHOLOGY 

resulted in failure and the gradual strengthening of those 
tendencies that resulted in success, without any sudden 
transition from blind 'trial and error' to correct orienta- 
tion. The transition came, but not all at once, as hap- 
pens when a human being suddenly sees into the problem. 

Similar experiments with puzzle-boxes, and also with 
mazes, or paths to be learned, have been tried on many 
species of animals, with the object of discovering 
whether all animals have some power of learning, the 
speed of learning and the difficulty of the problem that 
can be mastered by each species, the influence of age on 
quickness of learning, the best manner of teaching the 
animal, whether imitation provides a means of learning 
additional to trial and error, how long what has been 
learned is retained, and what parts of the brain are 
concerned in the performance of learned acts. 

Another line of work is concerned with the senses and 
sense discrimination of animals. Experiments on this 
question are also usually experiments in learning, the 
question reducing itself to this, whether the animal can 
learn, for example, to react differently to two colors. 
Suppose a cat is to be tested as to its power of distin- 
guishing blue from gray. It is placed before two doors, 
one bearing a blue spot and the other a gray. When It 
opens the blue door it finds food, but the gray door 
yields it nothing or perhaps even punishment of some 
sort. The blue and gray signs: are frequently Inter- 
changed, so that the cat cannot be guided by position. 
In a series of trials, however, the cat probably learns to 
choose the door with the blue sign quite regularly, 
showing that it can discriminate in reaction between the 
two stimuli used. But what it is reacting to may be a 



PROBLEMS OF PSYCHOLOGY 29 

difference of brightness rather than of color. To test 
this question, once the reaction to the blue is well estab- 
lished, the gray is gradually made brighter or darker; 
and it is found, as a matter of fact (by Cole), that a gray 
can be found of such brightness that the cat no longer 
reacts regularly to the blue, but goes to either the blue 
or the gray door by chance. The probability is, from 
work of this kind, that cats and dogs and a large share 
of animals do not have the power of color discrimina- 
tion, i.e., the power of reacting differently to light ac- 
cording to its wave length. The hen, on the other hand, 
is keenly sensitive to differences of wave length, and 
this is very likely true of birds in general. The monkeys 
also seem to discriminate colors. 

It is clear that the observations of the animal psychol- 
ogist are objective, and that his results are directly 
facts in the behavior of the animals, in their reaction 
to stimuli. Also, it is plain that generalizations in 
terms of behavior can be drawn from such observations, 
and have been drawn. Consequently animal psychol- 
ogy can fairly claim to be scientific. Can it claim to be 
psychology? Well, it is engaged in the study of in- 
stinct, learning, discrimination, matters that the student 
of the human mind must also consider. Only, it is not 
engaged in the study of consciousness. It was to be 
expected, in this state of affairs, that the animal psy- 
chologist, on turning his attention back to human or 
general psychology, should query whether after all the 
real goal of the science was not the study of behavior, 
human as well as animal. The most radical of them^ are 

^ As Watson in Behavior; An Introduction to Comparative Psychology, 
New York, 1914. 



30 DYNAMIC PSYCHOLOGY 

for excluding altogether the study of consciousness, 
arid, as they conceive it, throwing overboard the whole, 
or nearly the whole, of the human psychology thus far 
achieved, with its concepts and terminology, and mak- 
ing a fresh start. They would take animal psychology 
as the model, the objective method as the exclusive 
means of observation, and make the scientific descrip- 
tion of reactions to stimuli the goal of all psychology. 

This sounds revolutionary, but is really less revolu- 
tionary than it sounds. Psychology has not by any 
means waited till the present time before beginning 
studies of human behavior, nor have the consciousness 
psychologists ever had things all their own way. Sum- 
ming up in 1904 the convictions that had guided him 
for two decades of investigation and teaching, Cattell 
expressed himself^ as follows: 

*T am not convinced that psychology should be 
limited to the study of consciousness as such .... 
There is no conflict between introspective analysis and 
objective experiment — on the contrary, they should 
and do continually cooperate. But the rather wide- 
spread notion that there is no psychology apart from 
introspection is refuted by the brute argument of ac- 
complished fact. It seems to me that most of the re- 
search work that has been done by me or in my labor- 
atory is nearly as independent of introspection as work 
in physics or zoology." « 

Though few had given expression to this view of 
psychology when attempting to define it, a large share 

1 At the International Congress of Arts and Sciences in St. Louis, 
printed in the Report of the Congress, and in the Popular Science 
Monthly for December, 1904. 



PROBLEMS OF PSYCHOLOGY - 31 

of all the experimental work done from the time of 
Fechner down is virtually work on human behavior, 
and only incidentally, if at all, on consciousness. A very 
typical form of experiment has been the assignment of a 
task and the measurement of the success with which the 
task was performed; with variation of the conditions 
and observation of the resulting change in the perform- 
ance of the task. Fechner's own work in the perception 
of small differences was of this sort, though he chose to 
interpret it in a somewhat strained manner; and the 
same may be said of a large share of the subsequent 
work on psychophysics. Reaction time work is of this 
sort, and has frequently been criticised by the more en- 
thusiastic introspectionists on the ground that it has 
failed to give a description of consciousness. The same 
can be said, emphatically, of most of the great mass of 
work on memory and practice. Finally, studies of 
individual differences, heredity, mental development, 
and abnormal conditions have, with few exceptions, 
been carried out by objective methods and have con- 
sequently yielded results on behavior rather than on 
consciousness. It is true that introspection has some- 
times, and of late years to an increasing degree, been 
combined with the objective determinations; and it is 
also true that the results of the objective determina- 
tions have often been stated in terms of conscious ex- 
periences, rather than purely in terms of the objective 
conditions and the motor reaction; but the task would 
not be difficult to clear away all this introspective and 
interpretative material, and write a psychology, on the 
basis of results already obtained, that should be strictly 



32 DYNAMIC PSYCHOLOGY 

a science of behavior. And it would not be so meager a 
body of knowledge, either. 

The question remains whether it would be desirable 
to do this — ^whether the extreme behaviorists are on 
the right track in demanding that all introspection and 
all attempt to describe conscious processes should be 
swept away. Their objection is primarily directed 
against the introspective method, which they regard as 
untrustworthy. It may be worth our while, before 
attempting to answer the question, to examine this 
form of observation for a few moments. 

Introspection may be defined as the direct observa- 
tion by an individual of his own mental processes or of 
the impressions made upon him by external things. It 
is a form of observation that only the individual him- 
self can make. In practice, there are two quite different 
forms of introspection. ' The simpler case is that in 
which the subject is asked to observe and report the 
impressions made upon him by external things. You 
show him, for example, two colors, and ask him which 
appears the brighter, or it may be the more agreeable. 
He has a single task to perform, and one which is essen- 
tially the same as in objective observation. There is 
little difference between being asked, ' Which ^of these 
two colors is the brighter?" and "Which gives you the 
impression of greater brightness?" In the one case you 
are supposed to recognize the external fact, and in the 
other to observe your sensory response to the external 
fact, but the two come to the same thing in most cases. 
The only difficulty arises when the observer uses 
'secondary criteria* of the external fact, and thus 
judges it without taking account of his impressions of , ^ 



PROBLEMS OF PSYCHOLOGY 33 

brightness; but such difficulties should be avoided by 
excluding the possibility of secondary criteria, since it 
is practically impossible to prevent the subject from 
being influenced by them if they are present. With 
this difficulty avoided, no difference remains in prac- 
tice between this simple form of introspection and ordi- 
nary objective observation, and no reason remains for 
using the special term, 'introspection', in referring to 
this sort of observation. 

The more complex sort of introspection occurs in 
observing inner mental processes. Here the subject has 
a double task, to carry on the mental operation and to 
observe it. Since it is difficult and often impossible to 
perform this secondary task of observation along with 
the primary task, the only practicable way of getting 
an observation is first to perform the primary task, and 
then without delay to turn about and observe what has 
just passed through your mind. If the mental process is 
that of solving a problem, first solve your problem, 
devoting your whole attention to it, and then cast a 
backward glance over the process and notice what 
passed through your mand. If the process is of only a 
few seconds' duration, the backward glance at its close 
often recovers a good share of it — or so it seems to the 
subject. But, at best, this form of observation is more 
difficult than most others that are admitted in scientific 
work. 

Now the behaviorists are perhaps not serious in 
demanding that the first form of introspection be aban- 
doned, though they appear to say so. If it were dis- 
carded, visual after-images, difference tones, and many 
other so-called 'subjective' sensations would have to 



34 DYNAMIC PSYCHOLOGY 

be dismissed, since they are, as yet, known to us only 
from introspection. The complex form of introspection 
could with more approach to justice be ruled out; yet 
even from it some results have come with such regular- 
ity that they command general assent, and probably 
even the extreme behaviorists in their hearts believe 
them. The clearest instance would be the becoming 
automatic and relatively unconscious of an habitual act ; 
but there is much other testimony regarding the proc- 
esses of learning and the simpler sorts of thinking that 
is given with such agreement by different observers, and 
fits so well together, that it can scarcely be rejected 
by one who takes the trouble to examine it carefully. 

But if the extreme behaviorist errs by wishing to 
exclude from psychology a legitimate method and ob- 
ject of study, the extreme introspectionist, who would 
exclude the study of behavior by objective methods, is 
equally at fault. The majority of psychologists are 
disposed to give their blessing to both groups of en- 
thusiasts, and to hope that each group may meet with 
great success in attacking its chosen field. Meanwhile, 
it seems that neither party has rightly envisaged the 
real problem of psychology. 

A beginner in psychology, approaching the subject 
from the side of common interests and unworried as yet 
by controversies within the ranks of psychologists, 
would be inclined to suppose that the aim of the science 
was fairly clear, and to express it as an attempt to under- 
stand the 'workings of the mind'. He wishes to be in- 
formed how we learn and think, and what leads people 
to feel and act as they do. He is interested, namely, in^ 
cause and effect, or what may be called dynamics. 



PROBLEMS OF PSYCHOLOGY 35 

This is not only the commonsense point of view, but 
also the point of view that is most in evidence in the 
history of psychology. Locke, one of the prime movers 
in psychological study, expressed himself as designing 
to give ''some account of the ways whereby our under- 
standings come to attain those notions of things we 
have"^; Berkeley, in his Essay towards a New Theory 
of Vision, begins by saying, "My design is to show the 
manner wherein we perceive by sight the distance, 
magnitude and situation of objects" ; and Hume hoped, 
as he expressed it in his Inquiry Concerning Human 
Understanding, to discover, at least in some degree, 
the secret springs and principles by which the human 
mind is actuated in its operations, just as Newton had 
''determined the laws and forces, by which the revolu- 
tions of the planets are governed and directed." Even 
in recent years, while psychology has usually been 
formally defined as the descriptive science of conscious- 
ness, the actual interests of psychologists, as revealed 
by the problems taken up, have centered on this prob^ 
lem of cause and effect. 

What is meant by a study of cause and effect — since 
we no longer hope to discover ultimate causes — is an 
attempt to gain a clear view of the action or process in 
the system studied, both in its minute elements and in 
its broad tendencies, noting whatever uniformities 
occur, and what laws enable us to conceive the whole 
process in an orderly fashion. Now neither conscious- 
ness nor behavior provides a coherent system of proc- 
esses for causal treatment. Consciousness is not a 
coherent system, because much of the process that is 

^ Essay Concerning Human Understanding^ Book I, Chap. I, Sect. 2. 



36 DYNAMIC PSYCHOLOGY 

partly revealed in consciousness goes on below the 
threshold of consciousness ; and behavior, considered as 
a series of motor reactions to external stimuli, is in- 
coherent because it leaves out of account the process 
intervening between the stimulus and the reaction. 
Nor do consciousness and behavior taken together pro- 
vide a coherent system, since much of the internal 
process intervening between stimulus and reaction is 
unconscious. We shall undoubtedly have to look to 
brain physiology for a minute analysis of the process; 
but until brain physiology is able to give us such an 
analysis, and probably even after it has done so, we 
shall derive some satisfaction from the coarser analysis 
which we can derive from the introspective and be- 
havioristic methods of psychology. But the essential 
thing is to keep the dynamic point of view, and to be 
working always toward a clearer view of the mental 
side of vital activity, refusing to be contented with the 
fragmentary views offered us by the exclusive students 
of either consciousness or behavior, but endeavoring to 
utilize the results of both these parties, and the results 
of brain physiology as well, for an understanding of 
the complete processes of mental activity and develop- 
ment. 

Once the point of view of a dynamic psychology is 
gained, two general problems come into sight, which 
may be named the problem of 'mechanism* and the 
problem of 'drive'. One is the problem, how we do a 
thing, and the other is the problem of what induces us 
to do it. Take the case of the pitcher in a baseball game. 
The problem of mechanism is the problem how he aims, 
gauges distance and amount of curve, and coordinates 



PROBLEMS OF PSYCHOLOGY 37 

his movements to produce the desired end. The prob- 
lem of drive includes such questions as to why he is en- 
gaged in this exercise at all, why he pitches better on 
one day than on another, why he rouses himself more 
against one than against another batter, and many 
similar questions. It will be noticed that the mechanism 
questions are asked with 'How?' and the drive ques- 
tions with 'Why?' Now science has come to regard the 
question Why?' with suspicion, and to substitute the 
question 'How?' since it has found that the answer 
to the question Why?' always calls for a further 
Why?' and that no stability or finality is reached in 
this direction, whereas the answer to the question 
'How?' is always good as far as it is accurate, though, 
to be sure, it is seldom if ever complete. It may be 
true in our case, also, that the question of drive is 
reducible to a question of mechanism, but there is 
prima facie justification for making the distinction. 
Certainly the motives and springs of action of human 
life are of so much importance as to justify special atten- 
tion to them. 

This distinction between drive and mechanism may 
become clearer if we consider it in the case of a machine. 
The drive here is the power applied to make the 
mechanism go; the mechanism is made to go, and is 
relatively passive. Its passivity is, to be sure, only 
relative, since the material and structure of the mech- 
anism determine the direction that shall be taken by 
the power applied. We might speak of the mechanism 
as reacting to the power applied and so producing the 
results. But the mechanism without the power is 
inactive, dead, lacking in disposable energy. 



38 DYNAMIC PSYCHOLOGY 

In some forms of mechanism, such as a loaded gun, 
stored energy is present, and the action of the drive is 
to liberate this stored energy, which then does the rest 
of the work. This sort of mechanism is rather similar 
to that of a living creature. The muscles contain stored 
energy, which is liberated by a stimulus reaching them, 
the stimulus that normally reaches them being the 
'nerve impulse' coming along a motor nerve. The nerve 
drives the muscle. The nerve impulse coming out along 
a motor nerve originates in the discharge of stored 
energy in the nerve cells controlling this nerve; and 
these central cells are themselves excited to discharge 
by nerve impulses reaching them, perhaps from a 
sensory nerve. The sensory nerve drives the motor 
center, being itself driven by a stimulus reaching the 
sense organ from without. The whole reflex mechanism, 
consisting of sense organ, sensory nerve, center, motor 
nerve and muscle, can be thought of as a unit; and its 
drive is then the external stimulus. 

If all behavior were of this simple reflex type, and 
consisted of direct responses to present stimuli, there 
would be no great significance in the distinction between 
drive and mechanism. The drive would simply be the 
external stimulus and the mechanism simply the whole 
organism. On the other hand, what we mean by a 
^motive* is something internal, and the question thus 
arises whether we can work our way up from the drive 
as external stimulus to the drjve as inner motive. 

The first step is to notice the physiological facts of 
'reinforcement' or 'facilitation' and of 'inhibition'. 
These mean, in neural terms, the coming together of 
different nerve impulses, with the result in some cases 



PROBLEMS OF PSYCHOLOGY 39 

that one strengthens the other, and in some cases that 
one weakens or suppresses the other. Take the familiar 
'knee-jerk' or 'patellar reflex' as an example. This in- 
voluntary movement of the lower leg, produced by some 
of the thigh muscles, can only be elicited by a blow on 
the tendon passing in front of the knee (or some equiva- 
lent, strictly local stimulus). But the force of the knee- 
jerk can be greatly altered by influences coming from 
other parts of the body. A sudden noise occurring an 
instant before the blow at the knee will decidedly rein- 
force the knee-jerk, while soft music may weaken it. 
Clenching the fist or gritting the teeth reinforces the 
knee-jerk. The drive operating the knee-jerk in such 
cases is not entirely the local stimulus, but other cen- 
ters in the brain and spinal cord, being themselves 
aroused from outside, furnish drive for the center that 
is directly responsible for the movement. If one nen^e 
center can thus furnish drive for another, there is some 
sense in speaking of drives. 

Still, the conception of 'drive' would have little sig- 
nificance if the activity aroused in any center lasted 
only as long as the external stimulus acting upon it 
through a sensory nerve; for, taken as a whole, the 
organism would still be passive and simply responsive 
to the complex of external stimuli acting on it at any 
moment. It is therefore a very important fact, for our 
purpose, that a nerve center, aroused to activity, does 
not in all cases relapse into quiescence, after a momen- 
tary discharge. Its state of activity may outlast the 
stimulus that aroused it, and this residual activity in 
one center may act as drive to another center. Or, a 
center may be 'sub-excited' by an external stimulus 



40 DYNAMIC PSYCHOLOGY 

that is not capable of arousing it to full discharge; and, 
while thus sub-excited, it may influence other centers, 
either by way of reinforcement or by way of inhibition. 
Thus, though the drive for nerve activity may be ulti- 
mately external, at any one moment there are internal 
sources of influence furnishing drive to other parts of 
the system. 

This relationship between two mechanisms, such that 
one, being partially excited, becomes the drive of 
another, is specially significant in the case of what have 
been called 'preparatory and consummatory reactions' 
(Sherrington). (A consummatory reaction is one of 
direct value to the animal — one directly bringing satis- 
faction — such as eating or escaping from danger^ The 
objective mark of a consummatory reaction is that it 
terminates a series of acts, and is followed by rest or 
perhaps by a shift to some new series. Introspectively, 
we know such reactions by the satisfaction and sense of 
finality that they bring. (The preparatory reactions 
are only mediately of benefit to the organism, their 
value lying in the fact that they lead to, and make pos- 
sible, a consummatory reaction.^ Objectively, the mark 
of a preparatory reaction is that it occurs as a pre- 
liminary stage in a series of acts leading up to a con- 
summatory reaction. Consciously, a preparatory reac- 
tion is marked by a state of tension. 

Preparatory reactions are of two kinds. We have, 
first, such reactions as looking and listening, which are 
readily evoked when the animal Is in a passive or resting 
condition, and which consist in a coming to attention 
and instituting a condition of readiness for a yet unde- 
termined stimulus that may arouse further response. 



PROBLEMS OF PSYCHOLOGY 41 

The other kind consists of reactions which are not 
evoked except when the mechanism for a consummatory 
reaction has been aroused and is in activity. A typical 
series of events is the following : a sound or light strikes 
the sense organ and arouses the appropriate attentive 
reaction; this permits a stimulus of significance to the 
animal to take effect — for example, the sight of prey, 
v/hich arouses a trend towards the consummatory 
reaction of devouring it. But this consummatory reac- 
tion cannot at once take place; what does take place is 
the preparatory reaction of stalking or pursuing the 
prey. The series of preparatory reactions may be very 
complicated, and it is evidently driven by the trend 
towards the consummatory reaction. That there is a 
persistent inner tendency towards the consummatory 
reaction is seen when, for instance, a hunting dog loses 
the trail ; if he were simply carried along from one detail 
of the hunting process to another by a succession of 
stimuli calling out simple reflexes, he would cease hunt- 
ing as soon as the trail ceased or follow it back again; 
whereas what he does is to explore about, seeking the 
trail, as we say. This seeking, not being evoked by any 
external stimulus (but rather by the absence of an ex- 
ternal stimulus) , must be driven by some internal force ; 
and the circumstances make it clear that the inner drive 
is directed towards the capture of the prey. 

The dog's behavior is to be interpreted as follows : the 
mechanism for a consummatory reaction, having been 
set into activity by a suitable stimulus, acts as a drive 
operating other mechanisms which give the preparatory 
reactions. Each preparatory reaction may be a response 
in part to some external stimulus, but it is facilitated by 



42 DYNAMIC PSYCHOLOGY 

the drive towards the consummatory reaction. Not 
only are some reactions thus facilitated, but others 
which in other circumstances would be evoked by ex- 
ternal stimuli are inhibited. The dog on the trail does 
not stop to pass the time of day with another dog met 
on the way ; he is too busy. When an animal or man is 
too busy or too much in a hurry to respond to stimuli 
that usually get responses from him, he is being driven 
by some internal tendency. 

'Drive' as we have thus been led to conceive of it 
in the simpler sort of case, is not essentially distinct 
from 'mechanism\ The drive is a mechanism already 
aroused and thus in a position to furnish stimulation 
to other mechanisms. Any mechanism might be a drive. 
But it is the mechanisms directed towards consum- 
matory reactions — ^whether of the simpler sort seen in 
animals or of the more complex sort exemplified by 
human desires and motives — that are most likely to 
act as drives. Some mechanisms act at once and re- 
lapse into quiet, while others can only bring their action 
to completion by first arousing other mechanisms. But 
there is no absolute distinction, and it will be well to 
bear in mind the possibility that any mechanism may 
be under certain circumstances the source of stimula- 
tion that arouses other mechanisms to activity. 

The inadequacy of either the consciousness or the 
behavior psychology, in their narrower formulations at 
least, is that they fail to consider questions like these. 
Their advantage as against a dynamic psychology is 
that they are closer to observable phenomena. Be- 
havior we can observe, consciousness we can observe 
with some difficulty, but the inner dynamics of the men- 



PROBLEMS OF PSYCHOLOGY 43 

tal processes must be inferred rather than observed. 
Even so, psychology is in no worse case than the other 
sciences. They all seek to understand what goes on 
below the surface of things, to form conceptions of the 
inner workings of things that shall square with the 
known facts and make possible the prediction of what 
will occur under given conditions. A dynamic psychol- 
ogy must utilize the observations of consciousness and 
behavior as indications of the 'workings of the mind'; 
and that, in spite of formal definitions to the contrary, 
is what psychologists have been attempting to accom- 
plish since the beginning. 



*^ 



III 

NATIVE EQUIPMENT OF MAN 

An adult individual, whom we may imagine stand- 
ing before us for examination, contains within himself 
a large assortment of possible activities. We knov/ 
that if we show him familiar objects, he will recognize 
and name them ; that if we ask him suitable questions, 
he will understand and answer; that if we set him suit- 
able tasks, he will perform them ; that anger or embar- 
rassment or amusement can be awakened in him by 
appropriate means; that he can walk, jump, move his 
eyes, breathe, eat, digest, and, in short, display a large 
repertory of accomplishments. He is equipped with a 
w^hole machine-shop of mechanisms for accomplishing 
this variety of results. We know, however, that he will 
not behave In a purely machine-like manner. He may 
refuse to answer some of our questions; he may object 
to being detained for further Examination, on the plea 
that he has business of his own to attend to; and if we 
follow him through the day, we shall observe him at 
one time start out in quest of food, at another in quest 
of friends, at another to seek rest. We shall observe 
him devoting hours of attention and effort to such ap- 
parently unstimulating objects as columns of figures 
or rows of potato plants. \He evidently contains within 
himself a variety of driving forces, as well as a variety ^ 
of mechanisms to be driven^ 

Finding the adult individual thus equipped, we wish' 
to know how the equipment <^as obtained, how much 

\ 



NATIVE EQUIPMENT OF MAN 45 

of it was provided by nature and heredity, and how 
much has been added by the individual's own efforts and 
experience. We wish to make a distinction similar to 
that which we make when we say that the color of a 
man's eyes, or the shape of his nose, is a native trait, 
while the tan on his cheeks and the calluses on his palms 
are acquired. It is not always easy to tell whether a 
given bit of equipment is native or acquired. If it 
functions from birth on, as in the case of breathing, it 
is of course native. If it begins to function at a certain 
period after birth, even when conditions have been so 
controlled that no chance has been afforded for acquir- 
ing it through experience, as in Spalding's experiment 
on the flight of birds, it is native. Very often it is 
impossible to apply either of these tests, and then we 
are driven to the use of a third, less direct criterion. 
Where the members of a species or other natural group 
are either more alike or more different in any respect 
than can be accounted for by their individual experience, 
we have reason to believe that the likeness or difference 
in their traits is due to the native factor. Thus cats are 
more alike in their propensity to hunt mice than can be 
accounted for by their experiences; while, on the other 
hand, some cats are better mousers than others to a 
greater degree than we can explain by differences in 
their bringing up ; we conclude accordingly that cats are 
natural mousers, out that some of them are naturally 
better mousers than others. Of course, experience will 
affect a cat's behavior towards mice, but not to such a 
' degree, probably, as would account for the likeness and 
differences which we find.- 



46 DYNAMIC PSYCHOLOGY 

Language affords another good example. Men as a 
race are so much different from animals that we have 
reason to speak of a native aptitude for speech common 
to all men. Yet men are not absolutely alike in this 
function, since different languages are spoken in dif- 
ferent localities, and since, in the same locality, some 
individuals use language much better than others. Now 
the different languages of different groups of men are 
handed on from generation to generation, and are ac- 
cordingly explained, in any generation, by the different 
training and tradition. But the fact that the members 
of any community differ in their mastery of the language 
of that community cannot be altogether explained by 
differences of training, but must mean that individuals 
differ in the degree of their native aptitude for language. 
The uncertainty of this third criterion of native equip- 
ment is obvious : it requires an evaluation of the possible 
effect of training and experience, and this requires 
knowledge and good judgment, and may at best only 
give us probabilities. We can be certain, however, that 
there are differences between men in native aptitude; 
for whenever a number of Individuals subject themselves 
for a long time to special training in a particular line, 
such as typewriting, it is found that, in spite of great 
improvement by all, great differences remain in their 
final performance. When experience has thus done its 
utmost to make men alike, they remain different; and 
we might add that when experience has done its utmost 
to make men different, they often remain surprisingly 
alike in some fundamental respects. There must there- 
fore be native equipment common to men, as well as na- 
tive equipment differing from one individual to another. 



NATIVE EQUIPMENT OF MAN 47 

The new-bom baby, without learning of any sort, 
has the use of his heart, lungs, stomach, intestines, 
liver, kidneys, and in short of all of his internal organs. 
He also uses all his muscles, bends and extends his 
limbs, moves his trunk, head, and eyes in all directions, 
and makes complex and skilful movements of lips, jaws, 
tongue, throat, and larynx. He possesses, as part of his 
native equipment, not only the mere power of muscular 
action, but the fundamental coordinations of muscular 
action. These fundamental coordinations are provided 
by what are called the 'lower' nerve centers in the cord 
and brain stem ; a.nd it appears that the organization of 
these lower centers is provided by nature. Native 
equipment includes also the use of the sense organs. 
The child cannot be said to learn to see or hear, nor 
to acquire the power of seeing red and blue, or that of 
hearing high and low tones, by training and experience. 
Given the proper stage in the natural development of 
the visual apparatus, and given the proper external 
stimulus, and the child sees red simply because he is 
made that way; or, if he chances to belong to that 
minority of male children who are bom color blind, he 
does not see red because he is bom that way. 

Thus, the fundamentals of sensation, motion, and 
organic function are to be entered in the column headed 
'native equipment'. There is still more to go there. 

Not only does nature provide for the reception of 
stimuli from outside, and for the production of move- 
ments, but for the linking of certain movements to 
certain stimuli. The nerve mechanism that arouses a 
group of muscles to a coordinated movement is itself 
so connected to the nerve leading in from a certain sense 



48 DYNAMIC PSYCHOLOGY 

organ as to be aroused by a stimulus acting on that sense 
organ. The sensory mechanisms and the motor mech- 
anisms are geared together into sensori-motor mech- 
anisms, and many such belong under the head of native 
equipment. Swallowing, which occurs from birth on, 
is a reaction of certain muscles to the stimulus of liquid 
or soft substance in the mouth ; sneezing is a reaction of 
certain other muscles to an irritating stimulus within 
the nose. The numerous and varied native reactions 
can be grouped or classified according to the function or 
use which they subserve. 

There is a group of food -getting reactions: sucking, 
chewing, swallowing, spitting out anything bitter, mov- 
ing the head from side to side in search of the nipple, 
crying when hungry. In many, if not all animals, food- 
seeking activities on a larger scale are provided by 
nature, and often spoken of as the 'hunting instinct'. 
In the child this type of reaction does not appear very 
clearly, but perhaps because of the highly domesticated 
condition of the young human animal. 

A second group covers the danger-avoiding reactions. 
The simplest of these is the pulling away of the hand or 
foot when it is bunr^ d, pricked, or pinched. Squirming 
of the body appears m the new-bom infant in response 
to similar stimuli. Coughing and sneezing, winking 
when a foreign substance touches or approaches the 
eye, are analogous reactions of other members. More 
general protective reactions include dodging, crouching, 
huddling, and especially flight. The simpler danger- 
avoiding reactions, If unsuccessful, give way to flight, 
the most energetic and eflicacious reaction of the 
group. 



NATIVE EQUIPMENT OF MAN 49 

Somewhat similar in function is the group of reac- 
tions against falling or other disturbances of bodily 
equilibrium, for which there is a special sense organ in 
the inner ear. Resistance to impressed movements, or 
to external restraint, that is to say, to being pushed or 
pulled, held or impeded in one's own movements, is 
also a natural type of reaction. Even the young child 
shows, in these ways, a germ of independence. 

Swimming, crawling, jumping, walking, trotting, gal- 
loping, climbing, flying, or some form of locomotion, 
is part of the native equipment of every animal except 
man; and the probability is that, in man as well, creep- 
ing, walking, running, and perhaps climbing, are not 
really learned, but simply come into function when the 
native mechanisms providing for them have reached the 
necessary stage of natural growth. 

The new-bom child gives evidence of native ability 
to operate his vocal cords. He can vocalize, and a little 
later, before he shows signs of learning from others, he 
comes to make a variety of vowel and consonantal 
sounds. He even makes simple combinations of vowel 
and consonant, such as *ma-ma' and 'da-da', before he 
really begins to imitate the speec' of others. Thus the 
motor elements of speech are part of his native equip- 
ment. Crying, weeping, sobbing, frowning and scowl- 
ing, smiling and laughing, are all primarily native reac- 
tions. 

A variety of exploratory reactions are provided by 
nature. The simplest are the turning of the eyes toward 
an object seen in indirect vision, the pricking up of the 
ears in animals and the turning of head and eyes in men 
as well as animals In response to a sound, and the feeling 



5" DYNAMIC PSYCHOLOGY 

of an object with the hands and carrying it to the mouth. 
With these belong also the approaching of an object that 
ha '. aroused curiosity* Closely related to the exploring 
reactions are those of manipulation, and experimenting 
with things to see how they behave. We have in this 
group of reactions the germ of the activities that lead to 
knowledge. 

When a child or young animal is fresh and well, it Is 
not sparing of muscular activity, but goes through a 
variety of movements with no apparent stimulus or 
object in view. Probably slight stimuli are present, 
but it may at least be said to be part of the native 
equipment to be active in a motor way, as well, indeed, 
as in the way of exploration. Activity leads after a time 
to fatigue, and rest and sleep may properly be included 
among the native reactions. 

There are also several classes of more complex reac- 
tions that are called out by other persons. Individuals 
of the opposite sex act as stimuli, especially in youth, 
to display and courtship, and quite a variety of reac- 
tions, differing according to the species. Since the 
animal or human being is not responsive to this class 
of stimuli till he reaches sex maturity, his behavior then 
includes much that has been learned, but there can be 
no doubt that the fundamentals are provided by nature. 
The reaction of the young mother to her little babe is 
the strongest instance of a protective reaction toward 
the young and helpless that appears in some degree in 
both sexes. 

Herding together and playing together are typical 
instances of reactions to be classed under the gregarious 
instinct. When children, or adults, are together, we see 



NATIVE EQUIPMENT OF MAN , %i 

also a tendency to become the leader, if possible, or to 
follow the leader when dominance has been established 
These tendencies are probably instinctive rather than 
derived wholly from individual experience. 

We see also certain negative reactions towards the 
social group or some members of it, namely, embarrass- 
ment, shyness, and fighting. 

Closely connected with these native or instinctive 
reactions are the bodily and conscious states called 
emotions, and these also must be included under the 
head of native equipment. For it is quite evident that 
fear, anger, grief, mirth, lust, and the other emotions 
do not arise in the individual as the result of training. 
He learns to be afraid of certain objects, but he does 
not learn how to be afraid. All he needs, in order to be 
afraid, is to receive the proper stimulus, and then he is 
afraid by force of nature. 

The close connection of the emotions with certain 
overt reactions, such as flight, fighting, laughing or 
crying, and also with certain internal bodily changes, 
such as quickened heartbeat and breathing, flushing or 
paling of the skin, has long been a matter of common ob- 
servation, but the exact nature of the connection has 
not been at all obvious. The overt act has been usually 
thought of as the effect of the emotion, and the internal 
bodily changes, along with facial movements, have been 
conceived as 'expressing' the emotion. About thirty 
years ago, James proposed, and also Lange, to regard the 
conscious state of emotion as secondary to the bodily 
reaction, and especially to the internal part of it. Thus 
the emotion of fear would be a blend of sensations set 
up by the internal bodily changes, these being produced 



52 DYNAMIC PSYCHOLOGY 

directly by the perception of danger. The perception of 
danger would arouse the internal bodily changes, and 
the sensations set up by these bodily changes, blending 
together, would make up the conscious state of fear. 
This view of the emotions, called the James-Lange 
theory, has been the subject of a vast amount of dis- 
cussion, and is still to be regarded as a hypothesis de- 
serving of careful consideration rather than as an ac- 
cepted conclusion. But there can be no doubt, I be- 
lieve, that sensations caused by the bodily changes 
form part, at least, of the conscious emotion. 

The relation of the bodily changes and the emotion 
has come into much clearer light through recent physi- 
ological studies. Every one knows that the sight of food 
makes a hungry man's saliva flow; and experiments have 
shown that it also starts the secretion of the gastric 
juice. Thus an internal condition of readiness for the 
food is aroused along with the desire to eat it. More 
surprising, perhaps, is the fact discovered by Cannon ^ 
by the use of the X-rays, that fear or anger is attended 
by a prompt cessation of the churning movements of 
the stomach, as it is attended also by stopping of the 
flow of the gastric juice. In fact, the whole digestive 
activity is side-tracked during these emotions, and the 
blood is driven from the digestive organs to the heart, 
brain, and muscles. Thus, once more, a condition of 
bodily readiness is produced suitable to the muscular 
exertions to which the angry or frightened animal or 
man is impelled. 

1 For a condensed and readable account of these and other studies by 
Cannon, see his Bodily Changes in Pain, Hunger, Fear and Rage, 
New York, 191 5. 



NATIVE EQUIPMENT OF MAN 53 

The bodily preparation for flight or fighting goes 
much further than this. Not only is the digestive activ- 
ity checked, but the heart beats rapidly, the blood pres- 
sure rises, and the breathing becomes deeper and more 
rapid — all suitable preparations for a period of intense 
muscular activity. Sweat may break out on the. skin 
and thus make an early start towards the elimination of 
heat from the body that must occur with muscular 
activity. All of these bodily changes, it is interesting 
to note, result through the action on the organs of the 
sympathetic system of nerves, which, though not under 
voluntary control, is thus shown to be aroused by the 
brain. But the most curious set of facts recently added 
by the physiologists to our knowledge of emotional 
states concerns the participation of two small glands 
that are adjuncts of the sympathetic system — the 
adrenal glands, so named from their location near to the 
kidneys, though they are not directly related to the 
latter organs in function. They are glands producing an 
'internal secretion', that is to say, a fluid discharged 
into the blood stream, and by it carried to all the organs 
of the body, many of which it takes effect upon, the 
effect varying with the organ. The heart it stimulates 
to greater activity, the blood vessels of the internal 
organs it causes to constrict, the movements of the 
stomach and intestines it stops, the liver it excites to 
pour out into the blood its stores of sugar, that best 
fuel for rapid combustion by the muscles, the muscles, 
in some obscure but efficient way, it preserves from 
fatigue, and finally the blood itself it puts in such a 
condition that it will clot rapidly in any wound that 
may chance to occur. Now Cannon has demonstrated 



54 DYNAMIC PSYCHOLOGY 

by a whole cycle of experiments that the adrenal glands 
are excited during pain, fear, and rage to pour out their 
secretion into the blood, and to produce the changes 
just listed; and by this means, as well as by the direct 
action of the sympathetic nerves, the body is brought 
into a condition of eminent preparedness for the activ- 
ities of flight, self-defense, or aggression. 

The significance of these discoveries for the psychol- 
ogy of the emotions is evidently very great. The bodily 
changes that accompany emotion are now seen to be 
much more than merely incidental. At least in the cases 
of fear and anger, they are of extreme importance as a 
preparation for the overt action which is likely to fol- 
low ; and the same can be said of the pleasurable state of 
appetite for food. Whether the conscious emotion con- 
sists entirely of sensations of these internal changes, can- 
not be said ; but it is quite likely to be that in part, since 
organic sensations must result from the internal changes 
described. Cannon mentions the feeling of great 
strength that attends the bodily state of readiness for 
great exertion; and it is not unlikely that this feeling is 
a complex of organic sensations. In part, then, it is 
rather probable that an emotion is the way the body 
feels when it is prepared for a certain reaction. 

The emotion is also impulsive; it is an impulsion 
towards the particular reaction that the body is pre- 
pared for. Fear is an impulse to escape, and at the same 
time, organically, a readiness for the exertion of escape; 
and anger is an impulse to do damage, and at the same 
time a bodily readiness for the exertion of fighting. 
Appetite is an impulse to eat and at the same time a 
bodily readiness for the reception of food. Much the 



NATIVE EQUIPMENT OF MAN 55 

same can be said of certain other emotions, if not of all. 
The emotion with its bodily state is a sort of preparatory 
reaction looking towards the consummatory reaction at 
which the whole process is aimed. A dangerous object 
arouses the impulse to flee, a drive towards the con- 
summation of escape, while at the same time it arouses 
the sympathetic nerves and adrenal glands, and through 
them checks digestion, hastens the heart-beat, and in- 
creases the supply of fuel available for muscular activity. 

Whether these newer discoveries and conceptions are 
favorable to the James-Lange theory of the emotions is 
not perfectly clear. Cannon calls attention to the fact 
that the bodily changes in fear and anger are the same, 
though the emotions are different, and infers that the 
emotion cannot be wholly a reflection of the bodily state. 
The bodily state which he has discovered might, indeed, 
be better correlated with the more generic conscious 
state of excitement, which Wundt has put forward as 
one of the elementary feelings. Probably this bodily 
state occurs when the emotion is not strictly either fear 
or anger. Cannon finds evidence of it in athletes before 
and during a contest, and in students during an exam- 
ination, though the conscious state in these cases is 
probably not exactly either fear or rage ; it would better 
be named zeal, determination, or excitement. Yet it is 
not at all improbable that minor differences in the 
bodily condition exist corresponding to these differences 
in the emotional state, so that the body is not quite the 
same in fear as in anger; and consequently the James- 
Lange theory is not to be altogether discarded as yet. 

What the theory certainly seems to lack is a sufficient 
emphasis on the impulsive aspect of the emotion, its 



56 DYNAMIC PSYCHOLOGY 

tendency towards some consummation. James said, 
more or less, no doubt, in a spirit of playful paradox, 
'We are angry because we strike," so including the 
consummatory reaction of striking along with the pre- 
paratory bodily changes as contributory to the complex 
of sensations that constituted the emotion. As a mat- 
ter of fact, the striking deserves separate consideration, 
for the impulse to strike or otherwise damage our an- 
tagonist is the most important part of the whole com- 
plex. It represents the orientation of the whole organ- 
ism. Recognition of this fact is not absent from James's 
treatment, but it remained for McDougall^ to give it 
the emphasis it deserved. An emotion, he says, is 
part and parcel of an instinct. The instinct has a cog- 
nitive or perceptive, an emotional, and a conative or 
impulsive aspect, the last leading over into motor action. 
In the case of fear, the cognitive aspect is the perception 
of danger, the emotion is the inner state of fear, and the 
conative aspect is the impulse to escape, leading to the 
actual movements of escape. Instead of treating the 
second aspect as purely subjective, we may now utilize 
the results of Cannon and conceive of the emotion as 
representative of the bodily state of preparedness. 
Danger arouses a 'set' of the nervous system towards 
escape and at the same time, through the sympathetic 
division, an organic readiness for the exertion of es- 
caping. 

The admission ought certainly to be made that we 
have little knowledge of the bodily conditions attending 
emotions (or attended by emotions), except in a few 
instances: fear, rage, hunger, and lust. In these in- 

^ In his Introduction to Social Psychology. 



NATIVE EQUIPMENT OF MAN 57 

stances the set towards a consummatory reaction and 
the concomitant organic preparedness are clearly pres- 
ent, and the emotion, as a subjective state, may reason- 
ably be regarded as representative of this set and this 
preparedness. There are a number of other bodily con- 
ditions of which the same sort of thing can be said: 
thirst, suffocation, discomfort from cold or from heat, 
drowsiness, fatigue. In each case there is a drive 
towards a consummatory reaction — drinking, getting 
air, warmth, coolness, sleep or rest — and in each case 
there are internal bodily changes in the direction of 
preparing for this reaction, or of accomplishing in some 
measure the same end-result. Also it can be said that 
the subjective states accompanying these bodily con- 
ditions have a considerable analogy with emotion, even 
though they are not usually classed with the emotions. 
From the standpoint of the James-Lange theory they 
can perfectly well be regarded as emotions. The im- 
pulse to general activity, which we see especially in 
children, but which is characteristic generally of joyful 
states of mind, probably goes with a bodily state of 
freshness and surplus energy, the subjective side of 
which may be the feeling of wellbeing, 'euphoria'. 

When we consider mirth or amusement, we have no 
difficulty in identifying the impulse involved, which is 
simply the impulse to smile and laugh — though the 
ultimate biological utility of these peculiar reactions is 
not clear. There are also internal changes, especially 
circulatory, that we know to accompany the subjective 
state of mirth, and nothing is more probable than that 
there are other internal changes belonging with this 
state but not yet discovered; so that the mutual rela- 



58 DYNAMIC PSYCHOLOGY 

tions of subjective state, internal bodily condition, and 
overt activity are the same here as in case of fear and 
rage. Grief, in its primitive form, such as we see. in 
young children, is an impulse to weep, again with in- 
ternal bodily changes. The biological significance of the 
reaction is here pretty clear — the crying attracts the 
attention of the mother. It is a reaction of helplessness, 
not directly accomplishing anything, but serving to 
bring another to the aid of the distressed individual. 
Not that the infant has this useful end in view at the 
first ; for here, as with the sex and hunger instincts, the 
ultimate end of the act is not presented to the indi- 
vidual by instinct. His impulse is directed towards an 
immediate end, the biological utility of which he does 
not see. Grief remains typically a passive emotion, as 
distinguished from fear and anger, where the individual 
himself accomplishes something. Grief is typically the 
state of mind appropriate to a condition of affairs where 
nothing is to be done, and least by the grieving indi- 
vidual. The correlative state of mind in one who can 
succor the grieving person has been named the 'tender 
emotion', and is best seen in the mother with her baby. 
The impulse is to feed, protect, or fondle the child; and 
it is not at all unlikely that internal bodily changes 
analogous to those in fear and anger, though different 
of course, occur here also. 

All in all, it appears as if the formula developed from 
our rather precise knowledge of fear and anger were 
probably applicable also to a number of other emotions, 
and possibly to all ; so that it is a reasonable theory that 
the emotion, as a conscious state, represents or is cor- 
relative with (i) the drive towards a certain consum- 



NATIVE EQUIPMENT OF MAN 59 

matory reaction, and (2) the bodily state of prepared- 
ness for that reaction. It is clear also that native equip- 
ment provides for the internal preparation as well as 
for the overt reaction. 

Besides sensations, emotions, and reactions, native 
equipment also includes aptitudes or 'gifts' for certain 
activities, or for dealing with certain classes of things. 
We recognize this type of native aptitude when we 
speak of one person as having a natural gift for music, 
another for mathematics, another for mechanics, 
another for salesmanship. No doubt many such apti- 
tudes are complex and demand analysis at the hands of 
the psychologist; but it is equally true that there is 
something specific about many of them, such that an 
^individual who is gifted in one direction is not neces- 
sarily gifted in another. It is not, then, simply a ques- 
tion of native differences in general ability — though the 
existence of mentally defective individuals seems to 
show that there are native differences in general ability 
— but it is largely a question of native aptitudes of a 
specific sort. We observe such aptitudes 'running in 
families', and 'cropping out' in individual members of 
gifted families separated by a generation or more from 
other members who have manifested the same gifts. 
We find resemblances between members of a family in 
ability to perform tests of an unusual sort, but calling 
for specific abilities; and, all in all, we cannot escape the 
conclusion that aptitudes are hereditary and form part 
f of the native equipment. They are often designated as 
'native capacities'. 

That there are native capacities appears not only on 
comparing one individual with another, or one family 



6o DYNAMIC PSYCHOLOGY 

with another, but by comparing the human species with 
animals. Language is characteristically human, while 
finding the way home is apparently a stronger aptitude 
in birds, especially. Counting and dealing with number 
relations are certainly human, as is the power of using 
objects as tools. 

Native capacities differ from instincts in that they do 
not provide ready-made reactions to stimuli. We do 
not expect the musically gifted child to break out in 
song at some special stimulus, and thus reveal his musi- 
cal gift. We expect him to show an interest in music, 
to learn it readily, remember it well, and perhaps show 
some originality in the way of making up pieces for 
himself. His native gift amounts to a specific interest 
and an ability to learn specific things. The gifted indi- 
vidual is not one who can do certain things without 
learning, but one who can learn those things very 
readily. 

There would be little profit in attempting an in- 
ventory of this side of native equipment. We should 
simply have to enumerate the various occupations of 
mankind, and the various classes of objects in which he 
finds an interest, and in dealing with which he shows 
facility. Undoubtedly, a psychological analysis of 
human activities would be possible, but thus far it has 
made so little progress that we may pass it by. The 
analysis of mental performances which is traditional 
proceeds according to the abstract form of the perform- 
ance rather than according to the subject dealt with — 
according to the 'faculties' of perception, memory, 
reasoning, imagination, etc. Apparently men differ not 
so much in respect to their native ability to perceive, 



NATIVE EQUIPMENT OF MAN 6l 

remember, or reason as in the class of subject-matter in 
which they excel. Certainly the striking instances of 
great ability are instances of ability in some special 
field of things to be dealt with rather than in some 
special faculty. One individual is bom with a special 
adaptability to certain aspects of the world, and 
another with a special adaptability to other aspects. 
\ Native equipment may be conceived as consisting of 
I mechanisms either fully formed, as in the case of breath- 
ing, or growing of themselves to full functional condi- 
tion, as in the case of those instincts that mature after 
birth, or requiring experience to develop them to a func- 
tional condition and taking their precise form from the 
peculiarities of the individual experience, as in the case 
of capacities. Some of these mechanisms are so simple 
and smooth in their operation that they always respond 
instantly to the proper stimulus without interfering with 
the action of other mechanisms, while some of them 
cannot, when aroused to action, reach their goal at once, 
but remain active and furnish the drive for other 
mechanisms. In other words, the mechanism tending 
towards a consummatory reaction, on being itself 
aroused, furnishes the drive for the mechanisms of 
. preparatory reactions. In this way, native equipment 
provides drives as well as mechanisms — though every 
drive is itself a mechanism. 

Those native mechanisms that act as drives are of 
special importance, since they are the prime movers, or 
ultimate springs of action, in the lives of men or ani- 
mals. The motives of the adult are derived by a con- 
tinuous genetic process from the motive forces inherent 
in his nature. The process of development of derived 



62 DYNAMIC PSYCHOLOGY 

or acquired motives is part of the learning process in 
general, and will receive attention later. For the 
moment, attention is invited to the question of enumera- 
tion of the prime movers of human action. 

This is the chief problem attacked by McDougall in 
his Social Psychology. He says, in the introduction 
to that book : 

"The department of psychology that is of primary 
importance for the social sciences is that which deals 
with the springs of human action, the impulses and 
motives that sustain mental and bodily activity and 
regulate conduct; and this, of all the departments of 
psychology, is the one that has remained in the most 
backward state, in which the greatest obscurity, vague- 
ness, and confusion still reign. . . . It is the mental 
forces, the sources of energy, which set the ends and sus- 
tain the course of all human activity — of which forces 
the intellectual processes are but the servants, instru- 
ments, or means — that must be clearly defined, and 
whose history in the race and in the individual must be 
made clear, before the social sciences can build on a 
firm psychological foundation." ^ 

Other quotations from the book which reveal its 
guiding idea follow. 

"The human mind has certain innate or inherited 
tendencies which are the essential springs or motive 
powers of all thought and action, whether individual or 
collective, and are the bases from which the character 
and will of individuals and of nations are gradually 
developed under the guidance of the intellectual facul- 
ties" (p. 19). 

^ Eighth edition, 1914, pp. 2-3. 



NATIVE EQUIPMENT OF MAN 63 

''Are, then, these instinctive impulses the only motive 
powers of the human mind to thought and action? 
. . . In answer to this question, it must be said that 
in the developed human mind there are springs of action 
of another class, namely, acquired habits of thought and 
action. An acquired mode of activity becomes by 
repetition habitual, and the more frequently it is re- 
peated the more powerful becomes the habit as a source 
of impulse or motive power. Few habits can equal in 
this respect the principal instincts; and habits are in a 
sense derived from, and secondary to, instincts; for, in 
the absence of instincts, no thought and no action could 
ever be achieved or repeated, and so no habits of thought 
or action could be formed. Habits are formed only in 
the service of the instincts. 

'We may say, then, that directly or indirectly the 
instincts are the prime movers of all human activity; 
by the conative or impulsive force of some instinct (or 
of some habit derived from an instinct), every train of 
thought, however cold and passionless it may seem, is 
borne along towards its end, and every bodily activity 
is initiated and sustained. The instinctive impulses 
determine the ends of all activities and supply the driv- 
ing power by which all mental activities are sustained ; 
and all the complex intellectual apparatus of the most 
highly developed mind is but a means towards these 
ends, is but the instrument by which these impulses 
seek their satisfactions, while pleasure and pain do but 
serve to guide them in their choice of means. 

"Take away these instinctive dispositions with their 
powerful impulses, and the organism would become in- 
capable of activity of any kind; it would lie inert and 



64 DYNAMIC PSYCHOLOGY 

motionless like a wonderful clockwork whose mainspring 
had been removed or a steam-engine whose fires had 
been drawn" (pp. 42-44). 

Now if McDougall meant by 'instinct* any native 
tendency to reaction, one would certainly have to agree 
with him entirely; for in the absence of some such ten- 
dency provided by nature, no stimulus would arouse a 
reaction, the organism would remain inactive and con- 
sequently would have no means of learning or acquiring 
reactions. But the insistence on 'powerful impulses' 
gives us pause, since it seems to mean that in the ab- 
sence of powerful impulses no activity would occur. 
This would imply a high degree of natural inertia in the 
organism; and, in fact, McDougall seems to mean this, 
as also do the psychopathologists who have of late de- 
voted great attention to this matter of springs of action, 
and whose conclusions we shall consider on a later occa- 
sion. But this assumption of great inertia or inertness in 
the organism, though it might perhaps have a semblance 
of truth as applied to adults, is rather grotesque when 
applied to children — and it is to children above all that 
it must be applied, since it is only young children that 
are limited to native tendencies, older individuals hav- 
ing developed derived impulses, as indicated in one of 
the quotations above. If anything is characteristic of 
children, it is that they are easily aroused to activity. 
Watching a well-fed and well-rested baby, as it lies 
kicking and throwing its arms about, cooing, looking 
here and there, and pricking up its ears (figuratively) 
at every sound, one wonders what is the nature of the 
'powerful impulse* that initiates and sustains all this 
activity. The fact is that the infant is responsive to a 



NATIVE EQUIPMENT OF MAN 65 

great variety of stimuli, and that he is 'driven* very 
largely by the stimuli that reach him from outside; 
though, when he is hungry, we see him driven by an 
inner 'powerful impulse' through a series of preparatory 
reactions towards the consummation of feeding. In the 
play of older children, also, it is difficult to find a strong 
incentive necessary ; almost anything can be made play 
and then become attractive on its own account. It is 
true, as a general proposition, that as the individual 
grows up, his actions are more and more controlled by 
inner drives rather than by the immediately present 
stimuli; but even adults are less inert than MeDougall 
seems to assume. Their activity is more easily aroused, 
and requires less ulterior motive or drive than he sup- 
poses. 

However, the main question at present is as to what 
are the 'powerful impulses' or 'instincts', which, accord- 
ing to McDougall, furnish the only motive forces of 
much consequence for individual and social activity. 
He is specific on this point; he finds quite a "limited 
number of primary or simple instinctive tendencies" 
(p. 45), which are recognizable largely by the fact that 
each such tendency has a well-defined emotion as an 
integral part of it. His list is as follows : 

Fear with its impulse to flee (or more generally, to 

escape) , 
Disgust with its impulse of repulsion, 
Curiosity, 

Anger with its impulse to fight. 
Self-assertion, 
Submission, 



66 DYNAMIC PSYCHOLOGY 

The parental instinct, with its emotion of tender- 
ness and its impulse to protect, etc., 

The reproductive instinct, 

Hunger, 

The gregarious instinct. 

The collecting or acquisitive instinct, 

The instinct of construction. 

''A number of minor instincts, such as those that 
prompt to crawling and walking." 

''Some general or non-specific innate tendencies," 
namely, the tendency to imitate, the tendency to repro- 
duce in* ourselves an emotion which we see another 
expressing, the tendency to receive suggestions (sug- 
gestibility) , the tendency to play, the tendency to form 
habits and to prefer the familiar to the unfamiliar. 

If this inventory should be criticized on the ground 
that it omitted some important tendency — if, for exam- 
ple, one should urge that the laughter impulse deserved 
mention in view of the obvious instinctiveness of the 
act, in view of the strong attendant emotion of mirth or 
amusement, and in view of the considerable amount 
of activity derived from this impulse, McDougall could 
well answer that undoubtedly his list would require 
revision in detail, but that such criticism left the main 
principle untouched. But if we inquire whether 
McDougall could be induced to include what we have 
called native capacities in his list of instincts, we readily 
assure ourselves that he would not. To include them 
would lie quite outside of his scheme. They belong 
rather with those intellectual processes which he as- 
serts to be the servants of the instinctive impulses, to 
be, in short, mechanisms requiring drive, and not by 



NATIVE EQUIPMENT OF MAN 67 

any means drives themselves. This is the chief point 
at which the present discussion takes issue with 
McDougall — indeed, disagreement on this point is the 
chief element of contention in this whole book. The 
great aim of the book is, that is to say, to attempt to 
show that any mechanism — except perhaps some of the 
most rudimentary that give the simple reflexes — once it 
is aroused, is capable of furnishing its own drive and 
also of lending drive to other connected mechanisms. 
The question is, whether the mechanisms for the 
thousand and one things which the human individual 
has the capacity to do are themselves wholly passive, 
requiring the drive of these few instincts, or whether 
each such mechanism can be directly aroused and con- 
tinue in action without assistance from hunger, sex, 
self-assertion, curiosity, and the rest. Now^, of course, it 
must be admitted that sometimes the instincts furnish 
drive for other mechanisms. With respect to activities 
of the more intellectual sort, drive comes especially 
from such instincts as those of self-assertion, curiosity, 
and construction. The child can be spurred on to in- 
dustry in his studies by appealing to his self-feeling, as 
by pitting one child against another, or by urging him 
to show that he is 'man enough' to accomplish a certain 
task. Similarly, his curiosity or his natural im.pulse to 
manipulate and make things can be played upon in the 
interests of getting him to accomplish some task. This 
is true, and yet it is also true that such motives are 
likely not to carry the child very far in a line where he 
finds nothing intrinsically interesting to himself. For 
example, a child may be induced by such means to make 
a start in learning to sing, but, unless he has a natural 



68 DYNAMIC PSYCHOLOGY 

musical gift, he drops out soon, and parries the appeal to 
his self-feeling by deriding singing and those children 
who excel him. He finds some way of making this exer- 
cise appear unworthy of his effort, whereas the musical 
child, once started by the appeal to his self-feeling, is 
carried along by zeal for music itself, and puts forth 
great energy without requiring such extraneous stimuli 
to be constantly applied. 

It is the same way with curiosity as a motive. Un- 
doubtedly, curiosity may be aroused in the child about 
a great many things that are new to him. All normal 
children may thus be got to make a start in the study 
of plants or numbers or words. But one child then 
evinces an interest in one particular subject matter, 
and another child not, though he may show interest in 
another sort of thing. One child will go far in a certain 
subject with very little prodding, while another child 
can only be brought forward by constant attention from 
above. Yet this second child may later prove to have 
good abilities in some other line, and do much in it of 
his own initiative. When the matter of special abilities 
of individuals is subjected to exact study, it is found that 
specialization of capacity is a real fact. To be sure, a 
child who shows ability in one line is rather apt to show 
some ability in any other line that you may select for 
examination ; yet he is almost certain to have his forte 
at some one point, and not to be equally gifted in all 
directions. The likelihood of finding a child who does 
well in one thing doing well also in other things might be 
laid to such general factors as curiosity or self-assertion, 
as well as to general retentiveness or general tempera- 
mental factors; but the specialization of gifts which 



NATIVE EQUIPMENT OF MAN 69 

also is in evidence cannot be explained by such general 
factors. This specialization requires us, at the very 
least, to conclude to the existence of specialized capa- 
cities. The only question that could possibly be raised 
is as to whether these capacities are anything more than 
mechanisms. It might perhaps be the case that general 
factors, such as curiosity, furnished all the drive, but 
that this drive had most result where it found good 
mechanisms. According to such a view, the industry 
displayed by a certain child in number work would be 
derived from curiosity, self-assertion, or other general 
motives that were aroused, his success being due to his 
possession of extra good mechanisms for dealing with 
numbers; while the industry of another child in music 
would be due to the general motives of self-assertion, 
constructiveness, etc., and the special direction taken 
by the resulting activity in this child would be due to 
good mechanisms for appreciating and performing 
music. Can any objection be raised to this way of con- 
ceiving the matter? 

Well, there is one fact still unaccounted for, and that 
is the absorption of the child in the subject-matter for 
which he has a special gift. This state of absorption, 
whether in the child or in the adult, is worthy of our 
attention in connection with the matter of drive; for it 
certainly appears that the person who is absorbed in his 
task is being carried along by the interest of that par- 
ticular task. Absorption means that attention is wholly 
directed upon the matter in hand, and that it continues 
so directed. On the face of it, certainly, there is no 
outside motive carrying the activity along. Where 
outside motives are necessary, we cannot speak of 



70 DYNAMIC PSYCHOLOGY 

absorption; we then see a constant tendency to break 
away from the matter in hand, and a being brought back 
to it by the extraneous motive. This is the familiar 
process of Voluntary attention'. The individual has to 
force himself to attend to something, either because it 
is not itself interesting, or because some other, more 
interesting object claims the attention and has to be 
resisted by voluntary effort. We all know this condi- 
tion of voluntary attention ; and we know that it is very 
different from genuine absorption. Also we know that 
very little can be accomplished in such a task as reading 
or study, so long as the attention to it remains volun- 
tary. To accomplish anything in such a task, we must 
get really into the subject, absorbed in it, finding it 
interesting and being carried along by the interest of it. 
Often voluntary effort is needed in order to get a task 
started, to overcome repugnance, inertia, and distract- 
ing influences. The extraneous motive brings the horse 
to the water, but real drinking does not occur except 
from thirst, that is to say, from a desire for the par- 
ticular results obtained by the activity in progress. 
As a general proposition, we may say that the drive 
that carries forward any activity, when it is running 
freely and effectively, is inherent in that activity. It is 
only when an activity is running by its own drive that 
it can run thus freely and effectively ; for as long as it is 
being driven by some extrinsic motive, it is subject to 
the distraction of that motive. Thus, though self- 
assertion, rivalry, etc., are undoubtedly strong motives 
for arousing activity, nothing worth while is accom- 
plished by the individual who remains self-conscious, 
and nothing is accomplished, except in the simplest sort 



NATIVE EQUIPMENT OF MAN 71 

of activities, by the person who keeps the rivalry atti- 
tude constantly. We all know this type of behavior, 
where the interest of the performer is in himself and not 
in the work. One who has thoroughly prepared for 
a public performance of some sort, may break down in 
the performance because of inability to get away from 
the desire to do his best in the presence of all these spec- 
tators, this self-consciousness making impossible a 
direct application of his energies to the work in hand. 
The motive that originally induced him to go in for 
this event may very well have been a desire to distin- 
guish himself; but this motive has to drop out of sight 
or else by its distraction spoil the performance. It is 
not true, then, that the motive that initiates a given 
activity furnishes the motive force for the w^hole activ- 
ity ; it simply leads the performer up to the act, but the 
motive force for the act Itself must be inherent. In 
short, you simply must take as your immediate aim the 
accomplishment of the particular act before you. If 
you are to accomplish a given result, you must aim at 
that result, and, for the moment, must get interested in 
that result for its own sake. You will never get any- 
where in the particular activity by virtue of your gen- 
eral tendencies. This is notably true of continued and 
complex systems of activity, such as most human activ- 
ities become. Unless you get up an interest in a system 
of activities you can accomplish nothing in it. Extra- 
neous motives may bring you to the door of a system of 
activities, but, once inside, you must drop everything 
extraneous. 

McDougall's principle, therefore, "that the original 
impulse or conation supplies the motive power to all 



72 DYNAMIC PSYCHOLOGY 

the activities that are but means to the attainment of 
the desired end," would make a very bad guide in edu- 
cation or in any attempt to control and influence the 
behavior of men. It would lead the teacher to introduce 
extraneous motives at every turn and leave out of ac- 
count the interest which might be generated in the sub- 
ject matter. It would lead the manager of a business to 
conclude, since the employes are certainly there for the 
prime purpose of earning money, that it would be hope- 
less to generate in them any loyalty and enthusiasm for 
the concern or any interest in the technique of its proc- 
esses. This principle would also make a very bad guide 
in understanding the motives of men ; for, according to 
it, we simply have to discover the motive that led the 
individual originally to such and such a line of activity, 
and then we know the motive for his every act within 
that line. He, for example, chooses teaching as his 
livelihood, and therefore each of his acts is driven by 
the economic motive ; his apparent interest in his pupils 
and in his subject are illusions. McDougall seems to 
recognize the inadequacy of his guiding principle in 
one or two passages, as when he says (p. 349) that an 
act, originally undertaken simply as a means to some 
further end, becomes to the individual an end in itself, 
"Nothing is commoner than that the earning of money, 
at first undertaken purely as a means to an end, be- 
comes an end in itself." This is certainly true, and it 
is still truer that an accountant becomes interested in 
his accounting, the designer in his designing, and every 
one who has a decent job in the work of his job without 
constant regard to the pay envelope. McDougall would 
perhaps reply that he has sufficiently allowed for all this 



NATIVE EQUIPMENT OF MAN 73 

sort of thing in recognizing the importance of habic as a 
driving force — the accountant has become habituated to 
his accounting, and momentum keeps him going in that 
line. This, however, does not explain the learning of 
a trade or profession. It cannot be learned without get- 
ting interested in it directly and on its own account. 
So, in the process of learning typewriting, it has been 
found that progress beyond a certain low level does not 
come automatically, nor by virtue simply of great 
voluntary effort, but only by getting completely ab- 
sorbed in the work of typewriting itself. What a dull 
world, after all, it would be if things had no interest in 
themselves, but only as they appealed to some one of the 
primary instincts or a derivative from them! — if, with 
all our human capacities for dealing with things, we 
remained, as regards interest, at the level of the ani- 
mals, with perhaps a more mobile curiosity, a greater 
tendency to manipulation and construction, and a 
stronger dose of self-assertiveness ! It would certainly 
be unbearable to spend so much of our time in multi- 
farious labors with things that offered no attraction of 
their own, but were dealt with simply as means to a 
few remote ends. A man's whole working day would be 
occupied with uninteresting things. To be sure, modern 
division of labor in some of the lines of manufacture 
has gone far to reduce the labor of the individual worker 
to so bare a routine that he can scarcely take an interest 
in it; but this is recognized as a defect in the present 
industrial system. According to McDougall's principle, 
it would be no defect, since it does not in the least do 
away with the economic motive that leads men origi- 
nally into industry. Human life would certainly be bare 



74 DYNAMIC PSYCHOLOGY 

and dull if, along with the vast human capacity in the 
way of mechanisms for acting, there were no corre- 
sponding increase in interests. The result of such a 
disproportion would be that we should only seldom be 
working for an end that directly attracted us; almost 
all of our activity would be of the nature of drudgery, 
requiring outside drive to keep it going. 

As a matter of fact, human interests keep pace with 
human capacities. Almost always, where a child dis- 
plays talent, he also displays interest. It might not be 
amiss to extend McDougalFs conception of the connec- 
tion of instincts and emotions so as to speak of a native 
interest as the affective side of a native capacity. Along 
with the capacity for music goes the musical interest; 
along with the capacity for handling numerical relations 
goes an interest in numbers ; along with the capacity for 
mechanical devices goes the interest in mechanics; 
along with the capacity for language goes the interest 
in learning to speak ; and so on through the list of capa- 
cities, both those that are generally present in all men 
and those that are strong only in the exceptional indi- 
vidual. From the introspective side, an interest is 
somewhat similar to an emotion; from the side of 
behavior, it is a drive towards activity of the capacity 
to which it is attached. 

The instincts are adaptations to very general features 
of the environment, while the capacities are adaptations 
to more special features. Curiosity, for example, is a 
native adaptation to an environment that changes and 
continually presents something new; its behavior con- 
sists in the exploration of what is new. The capacity for 
perceiving number relations is an adaptation to a more 



NATIVE EQUIPMENT OF MAN 75 

special feature of the environment ; its behavior consists 
in counting, adding, subtracting, and performing more 
complicated arithmetical operations. This number be- 
havior is scarcely present in animals; it represents a 
specialized adaptation that is characteristically human. 
Now there is no obvious reason in the nature of things 
why the more general adaptations should have the char- 
acter of drives while the more specialized adaptations 
should exist simply as passive mechanisms. There is 
no obvious reason why this should be so, and there is 
no evidence that it is so, the evidence from the special- 
ized activities of men and from their power to become 
absorbed in these activities being quite to the contrary. 
We are justified, therefore, in concluding that the 
native capacities are essentially in the same position 
as the instincts as regards this matter of drive. The 
native capacities are mechanisms that are, in the first 
place, readily aroused to activity, and that therefore 
require little stimulus to start them going; and in the 
second place, once they are aroused, they, like the in- 
stincts, tend to remain active and to act as driving 
forces also for other related mechanisms that at the 
moment are not otherwise activated. 

The system of native human motives is thus much 
broader and more adequate to the specialization of 
liuman behavior than McDougall's conception would 
allow. It is especially the objective interests that are 
thus provided for — the interest in color, form, tone, 
number, spatial arrangement, mechanical effect, plants 
and animals and human beings. It is not so much 
the intellectual activities in the abstract — reasoning, 
imagination, memory, and the rest — that interest us, 



76 DYNAMIC PSYCHOLOGY 

as the different classes of object that appeal to our 
natural capacities. The world is interesting, not simply 
because it affords us food and shelter and stimuli for 
all our primal instincts, but because we contain within 
ourselves adaptations to many of its objective charac- 
teristics and are easily aroused to interesting and sat- 
isfying activity in dealing with these characteristics. 
The field of human motives is as broad as the world that 
man can deal with and understand. 



IV 

ACQUIRED OR LEARNED EQUIPMENT 

Extensive as is the native equipment of man, with its 
manifold sensations and emotions, movements and in- 
terests, it would bulk rather small, numerically, in an 
inventory of the whole equipment of the adult. Seldom, 
except in the internal workings of the body, does one 
perform a purely instinctive act. Previous learning has 
usually come in and given modified forms of behavior. 
We act as we have learned to act, see what we have 
learned to see, are interested in what we have learned 
to be interested in, enjoy what we have learned to enjoy, 
and dislike what or whom we have learned to dislike. 
Yet it would be a great mistake to suppose that the 
adult had 'scrapped' his native equipment — except in 
relation to digestion and similar internal processes — 
and built up for himself an entirely new outfit, by means 
of which he carried on his rational adult activities. The 
native equipment, or much of it, remains in use and is 
built up into the more complex and specialized mech- 
anisms of learned activity. 

Laughing — to take a clear case — is a movement that 
does not have to be learned. Though the child does not 
laugh for several months after birth, he comes naturally 
to laugh, when he has developed to a certain point. 
First he begins to smile, and a little later surprises and 
delights his mother by laughing aloud. He does this 
before he shows any signs of imitating the actions of 



78 DYNAMIC PSYCHOLOGY 

others, and evidently does not learn to laugh, but comes 
to it naturally. Throughout life, laughing is involun- 
tary, and few persons are able to get a real laugh except 
when they are genuinely amused. Thus the motor side 
of laughter is provided by native equipment, and re- 
mains an instinctive act, aside from certain refinements 
that may be introduced, and a certain moderation 
or complete suppression that may be imposed by 
propriety. 

But when we ask what it is that arouses laughter, we 
see at once that this side of the matter is not wholly 
provided by nature. The situation that provokes mirth 
in the adult has no power to do so in the child, while the 
situations that make the young child laugh lose the 
pGwer to do so as the child grows up. And one man 
laughs heartily at a joke that has no such effect on 
another. What causes great hilarity in one social group 
may be tame, or trite, or shocking, or simply baffling, 
in other circles. Each nation develops to some degree 
a set of laughter-stimuli peculiar to it, and, finding 
other nations unresponsive to its own particular form 
of wit, judges them to be lacking in a sense of humor. 
The English speak of 'easy jokes for Scotch readers'; 
the Americans maintain that the Englishman cannot 
see a joke; and the German, in Mark Twain's story, 
complained that the choice specimen of American wit 
that was offered him was 'no joke but a lie'. Exaggera- 
tions or puns are not appreciated without training; 
they did not have the power originally of evoking 
laughter, but have gained this power, with many people, 
through the effect of experience. The motor act of 
laughing, then, is provided by native equipment, but 



ACQUIRED OR LEARNED EQUIPMENT 79 

its attachments to the stimuH that provoke it in adults 
have been acquired. 

Amusing situations are of such variety that it is diffi- 
cult to find anything common to them all which could be 
assigned as the essential mirth-arousing factor. At- 
tempts to find such a common factor are however in 
existence under the name of theories of humor. One of 
the most noteworthy of these was early formulated by 
Hobbes {Leviathan, Chapter VI) in the following terms: 

'' 'Sudden glory' " — by which he means sudden self- 
glorification — "is the passion which maketh those 
'grimaces' called 'laughter'; 'and is caused either by 
some sudden act of their own, that please th them ; or by 
the apprehension of some deformed thing in another, 
by comparison whereof they suddenly applaud thcxH- 
selves. And it is incident most to them, that are con- 
scious of the fewest abilities in themselves; who are 
forced to keep themselves in their own favor, by observ- 
ing the imperfections of other men." 

Evidently, Hobbes is rather cynical in regard to 
laughter; and his theory is typical of most theories of 
humor, in that they seem like the work of individuals 
who are not themselves addicted to humor. They give 
the impression of being the attempts of those who can- 
not see the joke to explain what other people are laugh- 
ing at. Still it must be admitted that the element of 
suddenness, insisted on by Hobbes, is generally essential 
in a mirth-provoker; and the other element in his con- 
ception, the sense of superiority to others, can actually 
be found in a surprisingly large proportion of specimens 
of wit and humor. The practical joke, about the most 
effective stimulus to laughter with the untutored man, 



8o DYNAMIC PSYCHOLOGY 

puts some one in a position of temporary inferiority, and 
is not usually appreciated by the victim; and many 
jokes of a more intellectual sort also have an analogous 
element of maliciousness. On the other side, we have 
the fact that inferiority in another person may awaken 
pity or disgust, instead of laughter. Similar exceptions 
can be found to the other theories that have been put 
forward, as for example that which holds the mirth- 
producer to be an incongruity between two elements in 
a situation, or between expectation and realization. 

The great objection, however, to all existing theories 
of humor is that they are not genetic, or, at least, not 
based on knowledge of the genesis of the sense of humor 
in the individual. We ought, first of all, to discover 
what is the stimulus that naturally arouses smiling and 
laughing in the infant — it can scarcely be a sense of his 
own superiority — and to trace out the succession of 
stimuli that get the power to amuse him as he grows 
older. Perhaps a common element could thus be dis- 
covered in all the stimuli and shown to be the essen- 
tial element; though this is by no means certain, since 
the association of a given type of situation with amuse- 
ment might depend on accidents of the individual's 
history rather than on any inherent likeness between 
this situation and the natural stimulus to laughter. 
We do not know the natural history of laughter well 
enough as yet to give a satisfactory theory. But so 
much as this is pretty certain, that, while we laugh by 
nature, we learn what to laugh at. 

The same can be asserted of grief, fear, or anger. 
The motor side of each is provided by native equip- 
ment, but the stimuli that evoke these reactions change 



ACQUIRED OR LEARNED EQUIPMENT 'Si 

with experience, and their connections with the reac- 
tions are learned or acquired by the individual. This is 
generally true of emotions and their appropriate acts. 

The attachment of a natural reaction to a stimulus 
that is not its natural stimulus can be observed in much 
simpler cases than these of the complex emotions. 
Many instances can be observed in animals, such as the 
following from Spaulding.^ A hermit crab was kept in 
an oblong aquarium, one end of which could be dark- 
ened, leaving the other end light. The crab instinct- 
ively kept out of the dark end, but would go there when 
food was placed there, being attracted by effluvia of the 
food substance coming through the water. After being 
repeatedly fed in this way, the crab would go to the 
darkened portion of the aquarium, even when no food 
was placed there. Thus the food-seeking reaction had 
become attached to the darkening as a stimulus. The 
experiment was carried further by placing a wire screen, 
with a hole through it, between the crab and the food. 
The crab not only learned the way through the screen, 
but after awhile reacted to the screen as a stimulus, 
going behind it as soon as it was placed in position, even 
without the presence of food. The screen, not itself an 
original arouser of the food-seeking reaction, came by 
^association*, as the phrase runs, to have the power of 
arousing it. 

In the same way, the sight of food, though having 
no original power to excite the flow of saliva, comes from 
frequent association with the taste of food, which has 
this power, to have the power itself. Even the name of 
a food may produce the same result. Evidently there is 

1 Journ. of Comp. Neurol, and Psychol., 1904, XIV, 49. 



82 DYNAMIC PSYCHOLOGY 

no inherent likeness between the sound of the word 
'beefsteak' and the taste of beefsteak; and this case 
illustrates in a different field what was said a moment 
ago, to the effect that the various mirth-producers (like 
the various saliva-exciters) need not have more than 
an accidental or historical community. 

The case of the flow of saliva has been worked out 
with experimental precision by the Russian physiologist 
Pawlow. A substance which naturally arouses this 
reflex was introduced into a dog's mouth, and simul- 
taneously a bell was rung. After this had been repeated 
a number of times, the bell, without the tasting sub- 
stance, gave the reaction. Pawlow cailcd a reflex thus 
aroused by some other than its natural stimulus a 
'conditioned reflex'. Other reflexes can be similarly 
'conditioned', or associated to stimuli that have no 
power to evoke them apart from their having occurred 
concomitantly with the natural stimulus. Such second- 
ary or artificial connections may be only temporary, 
or may become permanent in the individual. Many 
fears, aversions, likes and dislikes are undoubtedly con- 
ditioned reflexes, and this type of learning accounts for 
a large proportion of our acquired equipment. It 
enables us to utilize our native stock of movements in 
accordance with the special conditions in which we grow 
up. It does not account for the addition of learned 
actions to the native stock, but for the linking of natural 
actions to new stimuli. 

In view of the importance that the very modern conception of the 
conditioned reflex is taking in discussions of learning, it is interesting to 
recall that Locke, in his chapter, 'Of the Association of Ideas', has in 
mind very much the same sort of thing. He does not employ 'associa- 
tion' so widely as his successors in the associationist school, but uses it 



ACQUIRED OR LEARNED EQUIPMENT 83 

especially! to explain irrational connections of Ideas. He says (Essay 
Concerning Human Understanding, Book II, Chapter 33): 

"Some of our ideas have a natural correspondence and connexion 
one with another; It Is the office and excellency of our reason to trace 
these, and hold them together In that union and correspondence which 
Is founded on their peculiar beings. Besides this, there is another con- 
nexion of ideas wjiolly owing to chance or custom: ideas, that In them- 
selves are not at all of kin, come to be so united in some men's minds, 
that it is very hard to separate them / . . To this, perhaps, might be 
justly attributed most of the sympathies and antipathies observable in 
men, which work as strongly, and produce as regular effects as If they 
were natural, and are therefore called so, though they at first had no 
other original but the accidental connexion of two Ideas, which either 
the strength of the Impression, or future Indulgence so united, that they 
always afterward kept company in that man's mind, as if they were but 
one idea. I say most of the antipathies, I do not say all, for some of 
them are truly natural, depend upon our original constitution, and are 
born with us; but a great part of those, which are counted natural, 
would have been known to be from unheeded, though, perhaps, early 
impressions, or wanton fancies at first, which would have been acknowl- 
edged the original of them, if they had been warily observed. A grown 
person surfeiting with honey, no sooner hears the name of It, but his 
fancy Immediately carries sickness and qualms to his stomach, and he 
cannot bear the very idea of it; other ideas of dislike, and sickness, and 
vomiting, presently accompany It, and he is disturbed, but he knows 
from whence to date this weakness, and can tell how he got this indis- 
position. Had this happened to him by an overdose of honey, when a 
child, all the same effects would have followed, but the cause would 
have been mistaken, and the antipathy counted natural. 

^^ Instances. The Ideas of goblins and sprites have really no more 
to do with darkness than light ; yet let but a foolish maid Inculcate these 
often on the mind of a child, and raise them there together, possibly he 
shall never be able to separate them again so long as he lives; but dark- 
ness shall forever afterward bring with it those frightful ideas, and they 
shall be so joined that he can no more bear the one than the other. 

'A man receives a sensible injury from another, thinks on the man 
and that action over and over; and by ruminating on them strongly, or 
much in his mind, so cements these two ideas together, that he makes 
them almost one; never thinks on the man, but the pain and displeasure 
he suffered come into his mind with it, so that he scarce distinguishes 
them, but has as much an aversion for the one as the other. Thus 



84 DYNAMIC PSYCHOLOGY 

hatreds are often begotten from slight and almost innocent occasions, 
and quarrels propagated and continued in the world. 

"A man has suffered pain or sickness in any place; . . . though 
these have in nature nothing to do one with another, yet when the idea 
of the place occurs to his mind, it brings (the impression being once 
made) that of the pain and displeasure with it; he confounds them in 
his mind, and can as little bear the one as the other. . . . 

"Many children imputing the pain they endured at school to their 
books they were corrected for, so join these ideas together, that a book 
becomes their aversion. . . . There are rooms convenient enough, 
that some men cannot study in, and fashions of vessels, which, though 
ever so clean and commodious, they cannot drink out of, and that by 
reason of some accidental ideas which are annexed to them, and make 
them offensive. ... 

"Some such wrong and unnatural combinations of ideas will be found 
to establish the irreconcilable opposition between different sects of 
philosophy and religion. . . . This gives sense to jargon, demonstra- 
tion to absurdities, and consistency to nonsense, and is the foundation 
of the greatest, I had almost said, of all the errors in the world". . . . 

Locke's way of stating his case is rendered somewhat unpalatable 
to the modern student by his broad and vague use of the term 'idea', 
and his always speaking of the connection of ideas when we should speak 
of the connection of stimulus and response; and it is a great advantage 
to have such connections demonstrated experimentally in very simple 
forms of behavior, as the recent animal psychologists have done. But 
when we go on to apply the conception of the conditioned reflex to 
behavior on higher levels, we are following very closely in Locke's 
footsteps. His suggestion that many antipathies and fears date back 
to accidental associations in childhood is specially worthy of attention. 

Besides this association of old reactions to new 
stimuli, there can also be observed, from a very low 
level of animal behavior up, a dissociation of reactions 
from their natural stimuli. Even protozoa or one-celled 
animals show temporary effects of this sort. Let such 
an animal be disturbed by a sudden current In the water 
in which It lives — a jet of water squirted at it. It re- 
sponds by a contraction or some other avoiding reaction. 
If the stimulus is repeated at short intervals, the reac- 



ACQUIRED OR LEARNED EQUIPMENT 85 

tion diminishes in force and then ceases to occur. The 
animal has become adapted, 'negatively adapted*, to the 
harmless stimulus. In the case of protozoa, the adapta- 
tion is only temporary, since, after a rest, the response 
will occur again as at first. There has been no addition 
to the native equipment, nor subtraction from it. In 
higher forms of animals, the adaptation may hold over 
a period of rest. A spider, observed by the Peckhams,^ 
dropped from its web — a defensive reaction — at the 
sound of a large tuning fork. When it had climbed 
back, the stimulus, repeated, gave the same response; 
and so on for about half-a-dozen times, after which fur- 
ther repetition of the stimulus did not elicit the response. 
The next day, response again, ceasing as before after a 
few repetitions. But after fifteen days of the same sort 
of training, the response could no longer be got from 
the sound of the tuning fork. The adaptation to the 
stimulus had become fixed, and constituted an addition 
to the native equipment of the spider — a negative addi- 
tion, in a way, yet one that was of positive advantage to 
the animal in the direction of economy. 

Many other instances could be cited in which a stimu- 
lus that naturally gives a certain response ceases to have 
the power to do so. The defensive or avoiding reactions 
are naturally made in response to stimuli that are under 
certain circumstances harmless ; but if the stimulus fre- 
quently recurs under these circumstances, it may be- 
come disconnected from the reaction, at least under the 
given circumstances, as occurs when a horse gets used 
to a harness or to being handled. The fighting reactions 
may similarly become dissociated from some of their 

1 Journ. of MorphoL, 1887, I, 383. 



86 DYNAMIC PSYCHOLOGY 

natural stimuli, as in the case of dogs and cats that learn 
to live together peaceably. Disjunction may also occur 
between the food-getting reactions and some of the 
stimuli that naturally arouse them. 

But the commonest case of such disjunction is that 
between the exploring and attending reactions and 
many stimuli that at first arouse them. By nature, any 
sensory impression that is at all strong or sudden at- 
tracts attention; but it loses this power with frequent 
repetition, unless, on being attended to, it has led to 
some further reaction. We thus become negatively 
adapted to the ticking of the clock, to the presence of 
any object that does not call for action on our part, to 
the beauty of an always-present landscape or picture, 
to the amiable qualities of our husbands and wives, and 
to any demands on our attention and effort that can be 
disregarded with impunity. 

Negative adaptation is a source of economy of effort, 
and gives evidence of the working of a principle of 
economy in living things. There is another type of 
disjunction between a natural reaction and a stimulus 
that naturally arouses it, a disjunction brought about 
by the unfavorable outcome of the reaction when made 
in response to this particular stimulus. The young 
chick picks up a caterpillar as it does any other object 
of similar size, but promptly drops it, and after a few 
such experiences, ceases to peck at caterpillars. Trip- 
lett's interesting experiment ^ on the perch and the 
minnows deserves mention here. Two perch were kept 
in an oblong aquarium, one end of which was shut off 
by a glass partition. They had formerly been fed on 

^ Amer. Journ. of Psychol., 1901, XII, 354. 



ACQUIRED OR LEARNED EQUIPMENT 87 

minnows, but at the time of the experiment in question 
their food was changed to fish worms. Minnows were 
placed from time to time, and later left all the time, in 
the further part of the aquarium. The first reaction of 
the perch to the presence of the minnows was to dart at 
them, but after bumping their noses many times against 
the glass partition, they gave it up for the day, and on 
the next day, when the minnows were again put in, 
made less effort to get them than on the first day. At 
the end of a month of such training, the perch having 
ceased to strike the glass, the partition was removed, 
but the perch behaved as if it were still there, swimming 
up to the line where it had been, and along that line, 
but not crossing it. The minnows, however, swam over 
to the perch, but were perfectly safe. The perch had 
ceased to hunt minnows, at least in that aquarium. 

A similar experiment on mammals may also be de- 
scribed.^ A mouse is placed in a small box, with two ^i'- 
passages leading out of it. The mouse reacts, sooner or h 

later, by entering and exploring one of the passages. '^ 

As he does so, he steps on some wires in the floor and 
receives an electric shock strong enough to be unpleasant 
but not injurious. He retreats from the passage, and 
does not immediately re-enter; in fact, he tends to re- 
main for some time in the box and not to explore fur- 
ther. After a time, he becomes uneasy and starts to 
explore again. If he enters the same passage as before, 
he again gets a shock, but if he goes to the other passage, 
he gets no shock, but escapes from the narrow confine- 
ment of the box to his nest. The experiment being re- 
peated a number of times, the mouse comes to take 

^ See Yerkes, The Dancing Mouse, 1907, pp. 95^. 



88 DYNAMIC PSYCHOLOGY 

always the passage that gives no shock. This may be 
the right-hand or the left-hand passage, in which case 
the discrimination is quickly established; in fact, one 
experience of the shock is often sufficient when the 
choice offered is simply between right and left. When 
one passage is fronted with a white arch and the other 
with a black arch, these signs being frequently inter- 
changed, and a shock given whenever, let us say, the 
passage with the white sign is entered, it takes the mouse 
perhaps a hundred trials before he avoids the white 
altogether ; and if the signs are two shades of gray, not 
very different from each other, a still larger number of 
trials is required before the discrimination is fully estab- 
lished. What the experiment shows for our present 
purpose is, first, that a stimulus which naturally arouses 
a positive reaction — in this case, exploration — becomes 
disjoined from this reaction and joined to a negative 
or avoiding reaction, as the result of a painful stimulus 
accompanying the positive reaction; and, second, that, 
driven by the need of escaping from confinement and 
by the need of avoiding the pain, the animal comes to 
attend to certain features of the situation — here the 
black, white, or gray signs — that he naturally pays little 
attention to. The avoidance of the pain-giving passage 
can be understood as a case of conditioned reflex: the 
sight of the passage is quickly followed by the shock 
which calls out the avoiding reaction, and thus the sight 
of the passage comes itself to evoke the avoiding reac- 
tion, while the exploring reaction, incompatible with 
the avoiding reaction, is shunted out. Attention and 
reaction to features that would otherwise have been 
neglected may perhaps be understood as follows : driven 



ACQUIRED OR LEARNED EQUIPMENT 89 

by the need of escaping from the box, the mouse is 
brought to a halt by the painful stimulus, and thus 
stimuli which have only a faint power to arouse response 
in him have a chance to e^ert whatever power they have. 

Disjunction of a response from its natural stimulus 
by punishment, like the other form of disjunction by 
adaptation, plays a great part in modifying human as 
well as animal equipment for future action. To be 
effective, punishment should be applied in direct con- 
nection with the act punished, it should be applied 
regularly and not spasmodically, and it should be just 
severe enough to produce the avoiding reaction, without 
causing such fear as to paralyze further attention to the 
situation. A situation which elicits a punishable reac- 
tion may be well conceived of as a puzzle, the solution 
of which depends upon attention to elements that have 
no great power to attract the attention of the animal 
or natural man ; but if the element in the situation that 
does naturally control the response brings punishment 
without paralyzing activity, other elements may be 
observed and a suitable reaction reached. 

Punishment need not mean pain. If a man or animal 
has a 'dead set' towards a certain result (or 'consumma- 
tion'), being foiled in the pursuit of this aim is, sub- 
jectively, as unpleasant as actual pain, and acts as an 
effective punishment, deterring not, indeed, from the 
pursuit of the end, but from the means which have led 
to ill success. A rat — to recur to the animal experiments ^ 
— is placed in a maze with food at the center. At first, 
being unaware of the neighborhood of food, the rat 
simply explores; but after it has once come upon the 

^ See Hicks and Carr, Journal of Animal Behavior, 1912, II, 98. 



90 DYNAMIC PSYCHOLOGY 

food, and is then replaced at the beginning, its behavior 
shows an urgency that indicates searching. After a 
number of trials, it avoids all the blind alleys, and races 
at top speed through the maze to the food. Its behavior 
towards the blind alleys is interesting. At first, any 
passage arouses the exploring reaction, but when in 
search of the food, it comes out of a blind alley as soon 
as it has explored it a little ; the next time, it may simply 
stick its head in and pass on ; while finally it disregards 
the blind alley altogether. In short, it develops a nega- 
tive or avoiding reaction to the blind alley very much 
as if an electric shock were concealed there. 

A somewhat different form of experiment, much used 
in studying animal learning, is the 'puzzle-box', a cage 
to be escaped from by operating some mechanical de- 
vice, such as a bolt. A cat, in Thomdike's experiments, ^ 
was placed hungry in the cage, and a bit of food out- 
side, visible through the bars of the cage. The animal 
tries to squeeze between the bars toward the food. 
Foiled here, it attacks some other promising opening, 
or some part of the cage that stands out enough to at- 
tract its attention. It bites here, claws there, pulls and 
shakes anything that moves or yields at all, and among 
other things attacks the bolt and eventually gets out 
and is rewarded by food. Replaced in the cage, it does 
much the same, but is apt, on the whole, to make fewer 
useless movements and escape more quickly. In the 
course of a number of trials, more or fewer according to 
the difficulty of the act required, it eliminates all the 
unsuccessful reactions, and becomes able to escape in- 
stantly. This has been called learning by 'trial and 

1 Animal Intelligence, 1898. 



ACQUIRED OR LEARNED EQUIPMENT 91 

error'. The outstanding features of the process are 
(i) the set or drive to get out, (2) the varied reactions 
made to various features of the complex situation that 
confronts the cat, (3) the gradual elimination of the un- 
successful reactions, and (4) the directness and speed 
with which the successful reaction is finally made. 

The inner nature of this process of learning by trial 
and error is not yet clear. Thomdike has based upon 
it his 'law of effect', which states that the satisfying or 
unsatisfying outcome of a reaction acts respectively to 
strengthen or weaken the connection between the stimu- 
lus and that reaction, so that those reactions which bring 
satisfaction gradually get the advantage over those that 
do not. Watson and others have sought to get rid of 
this law of effect, and explain everything in terms of the 
conditioned reflex and of the long-accepted 'law of 
frequency', which states that the connection between 
a stimulus and a response is stronger in proportion to 
the number of times the reaction has been made; but 
their analysis is as yet far from complete. There can 
be no manner of doubt that an unsuccessful reaction 
acts as a punishment and leads to avoidance of that par- 
ticular act ; and it is also highly probable that that one of 
the preparatory reactions which leads over directly into 
the consummatory reaction gets the benefit of the 
dammed-up energy tending towards the consummatory 
reaction, and so becomes integrated with the consum- 
matory reaction into a single complex act. If this is a 
correct interpretation, we have in this instance of learn- 
ing something that we have missed hitherto, namely, the 
addition, not only of new connections between stimulus 
and native response, but the building up of two natural 



92 DYNAMIC PSYCHOLOGY 

responses into a single complex act. The cat does not 
simply eliminate unsuccessful reactions to the situation, 
and thus leave the successful response as the sole reac- 
tion, but it learns the complex response of pushing- the- 
bolt-going-out-and-eating. 

In the human being, acquired equipment contains a 
vast number of complex acts that have been integrated 
in the process of learning and so made available as units. 
Language furnishes a host of instances. The elementary 
movements of vocalization and articulation are pro- 
vided by nature and executed by the infant before he 
begins to learn to speak. His learning to speak con- 
sists partly in forming fixed compounds of these ele- 
mentary movements — such fixed units as words, syl- 
lables, and familiar phrases — ^which thereafter are units 
for him. The mechanism for a word or familiar phrase 
is thrown into action by a single act, and not by a series 
of conscious acts corresponding to the linguistic ele- 
ments of the word or phrase. The same sort of thing is 
true of writing. Nature provides the elementary finger 
movements; training combines these into the complex 
movements of making loops and letters, writing whole 
words, signing one's name. After training, these com- 
plex movements are thrown into action as units. In 
learning to read, a child may begin with the letters, or 
with words, or even with short sentences; but, in any 
case, he comes finally to respond to the complex printed 
patterns as units. More precise information as to the 
method of learning to deal with such linguistic com- 
plexes has been obtained by experiments on the learning 
by adults of typewriting and telegraphy. The process 
of learning is very much the same in each case. In be- 



ACQUIRED OR LEARNED EQUIPMENT 93 

ginning typewriting^ (by the 'touch' method, let us sup- 
pose, in which the keyboard is not visible, though a 
diagram of it may be placed before the subject to guide 
his movements) , the first task is to learn the location of 
the single letters and the finger movement necessary to 
reach each letter from the primary position of the hands. 
When, after considerable practice, the learner is able to 
strike any letter as soon as he thinks of it, by a single 
direct movement of the proper finger, he is able to write 
with some little speed, and may imagine that he has 
learned typewriting, and that his further progress will 
simply consist in speeding up and smoothing off the 
process as he is then executing it. But if he continues 
his effort for greater speed, he finds, after some time, 
that he is writing in a different way, no longer spelling 
out every word, and writing each letter by a separate 
act, but treating familiar words as wholes, and execut- 
ing the combination of letter movements that produce 
the word as a single complex act. He even comes, with 
continued practice, to write familiar phrases as wholes. 
Evidently he has developed mechanisms for producing 
fixed series of finger movements, and works with these 
larger mechanisms instead of with the smaller mech- 
anisms which he at first developed for making single 
finger movements at the thought of single letters. These 
simplest units have come to be geared together into 
higher units. The whole developed system of type- 
writing mechanisms possesses a high degree of flexibility, 
since either the single letter reactions or their numerous 
combinations can, according to circumstances, be 
touched off. 

1 See W. F. Book, The Psychology of Skill, 1908. 



94 DYNAMIC PSYCHOLOGY 

The process of learning to telegraph ^ goes through the 
same stages, beginning with letter units, and adding 
word and phrase units later. The telegrapher, more- 
over, learns not only to write or 'send' by letters, words, 
and phrases as units, but also to 'receive' in the same 
way. At first, when he is receiving a message by ear 
from the sounder, he must identif}^ the single letters in 
the series of clicks that come to him, and so laboriously 
spell out the words. As long as he is in this stage, his 
receiving is too slow for regular line work. By dint of 
continued practice, he is able to recognize the longer 
series of clicks that represents a word, without picking- 
out the separate letters in that word ; and the same with 
farniliar phrases. He develops mechanisms of the 
'higher unit' variety for recognizing words and phrases, 
and habitually makes use of these, while he is always 
able to utilize also the simpler mechanisms for recog- 
nizing single letters when the message comes in un- 
familiar words. 

'Higher unit mechanisms*, so clearly evident in lin- 
guistic performances, from speaking to telegraphing, 
are also present in all skilled action; and, in fact, skill 
consists very largely in the use of such labor-saving 
machinery. As to the process by which these higher 
units are developed, we have one or two significant 
indications. 

When the compound act to be learned is of a motor 
sort, as in typewriting or in sending telegraphic mes- 
sages, an essential element of the process of learning 
seems to be a forward-looking or anticipation. While 

1 Bryan and Harter, Psychological Review^ 1897, IV, 27 and 1899, 

VI, 345. 



ACQUIRED OR LEARNED EQUIPMENT 95 

one simple movement is being executed, attention is 
already directed towards the movement that is next to 
follow. When the learner has so far progressed that he 
can thus anticipate, the jerkiness previously visible in 
his movements tends to disappear, since, instead of 
halting at the end of the first movement and then ini- 
tiating the second, he goes through the preliminaries of 
the second movement while actually executing the first, 
and so is able to pass smoothly from one to the other. 
When this manner of executing a series of movements 
has become habitual and easy, the series becomes a 
single continuous act. 

When the compound act to be learned is one of a per- 
ceptual sort, as in receiving telegraphic messages, antici- 
pation of what is to come is unsafe, and the mode of 
procedure adopted is to keep the attention behind, in- 
stead of ahead of the external end of the process. That 
is to say, in receiving telegraphic messages, one who is 
beginning to develop skill allows a number of clicks to 
come and go before definitely settling with any of them. 
He keeps behind the clicks in his reading of them, and 
by this means is able to fix his attention on the whole 
series corresponding to a word or phrase. He so adjusts 
his attention that his reaction to the clicks will be deter- 
mined by a whole lot of them instead of by one or two. 

While the process of learning to perceive and recog- 
nize complex objects is not so easy to study as the pro- 
cess of making complex movements, this observation on 
telegraphers is probably a good sample of what occurs 
in other analogous cases — the perception of a complex 
is possible by virtue of such an attitude of attention as 
permits the complex of stimuli to act conjointly in deter- 



96 DYNAMIC PSYCHOLOGY 

mining the perceptual act. We have some evidence of 
this sort of thing in experiments^ on memorizing long 
lists of numbers or nonsense syllables. In such work, 
the subject spontaneously groups the numbers or syl- 
lables, and the division into groups precedes careful 
study of the single items. The group is apprehended 
first as a unit, and then analyzed into its parts, the parts 
being perceived in their relationship to their group. 
Only by taking the material in such larger units is it 
possible to memorize economically. 

A false impression may easily be created by confining 
the examination of 'higher units' to typewriting and 
telegraphy, in which it is customary, if not absolutely 
necessary, to begin by mastering the lower units — here 
the letters — and in which the higher units make their 
appearance only after the lower units are so well mas- 
tered as to be automatic. Modern experience in the 
teaching of reading shows that there it is not necessary 
to master the letters before dealing with words as units. 
The printed word, as a whole, has a characteristic ap- 
pearance which can be recognized by the child before he 
knows the letters put together to make the word. His 
perception of the word is at first rather vague and un- 
analyzed, though definite enough to identify the word; 
and the child's further progress in reading consists 
partly in the analysis of the word units into letter units. 
'Higher units first, with more or less of later analysis 
into smaller units' is probably the rule rather than the 
exception. The child perceives an object first as a 
whole; later he may observe how the object is made up. 
The adult procedure also is to begin with the total 

1 G. E. Miiller, Zur Analyse der Geddchtnistdtlgkeit, 1911, 191 3. 



ACQUIRED OR LEARNED EQUIPMENT 97 

impression of a complex object, and to advance, if and 
as far as necessary, to the details. Many a face can we 
recognize which we cannot describe in any detail. 
Oftentimes, what we are able to tell about a well-known 
face amounts to little more than that it is a human face. 
We know it as a characteristic whole, but we do not 
know its parts. An artist, under the necessity of repro- 
ducing the face, notices details, but even he does not 
push his analysis to the limit. He does not propose to 
map every little marking, and neglects what is of no 
consequence for his purpose. This is typical of the 
process of observation. Observation starts with un- 
analyzed wholes and proceeds as far as necessary in the 
detection of details. The whole with which it starts is 
not necessarily the largest whole that can be appre- 
hended ; and accordingly the reverse process of combin- 
ing smaller units that have been observed into larger 
units also goes on, but the movement from the whole to 
the part is the more characteristic of perceptual acts. 
Nor is it by any means absent from motor acts. In 
learning to use a tool, the start is usually made by a 
rough approximation to the movement as a whole, and 
progress consists partly in noticing details in the 
manipulation which are capable of improvement. A 
complex motor act, performed at first as a rough whole, 
may next be analyzed into a sequence of elementary 
acts, and these separately mastered and then recom- 
bined into a smooth, continuous process, as already 
described ; so the act becomes a whole again, but a more 
skillful whole than at first. 

Besides the combination of instinctive movements 
into learned compounds, there is some indication that 



98 DYNAMIC PSYCHOLOGY 

a compound movement provided by nature can be 
broken up, so that a learned movement may consist of 
a part of an instinctive movement. The most obvious 
cases are the various tricks of movement that children 
delight in — ^winking one eye, bending a finger at one 
joint, etc. Of more practical significance is the ability 
to move single fingers as in piano playing, an ability 
which is only learned by considerable effort, because the 
natural tendency of the fingers (except the index) is to 
move together. Some doubt is thrown on all these cases 
by the fact that the young baby may sometimes be 
observed to do such things as wink one eye or move the 
fingers separately, though in an incomplete way; pos- 
sibly, we should infer, the process of learning these 
isolated movements later is less a process of breaking 
up a natural coordination than a process of getting 
control over a simpler and little used but still natural 
movement. Whether the analytic process, on the motor 
side, ever gets beyond the simplest coordinations pro- 
vided in native equipment, is thus subject to doubt, 
though there is no doubt that analysis of the motor 
compounds that naturally occur in response to a given 
situation is a common process of learning. On the per- 
ceptual side, analysis is still more in evidence, in the 
sense that we learn to notice and respond to elements 
and features of a complex object or situation which at 
first we only perceive as a totality. Thus we become 
observant of size, shape, color, number, and numerous 
other qualities and relations of things. 

The simplest instance of the analytic process is per- 
haps that already mentioned of the mouse which, being 
brought to a halt in its natural reaction to a situation as 



ACQUIRED OR LEARNED EQUIPMENT 99 

a whole by encountering an electric shock, came to 
react to particular features, such as a black or white 
arch over a door, to which by nature it paid little atten- 
tion. It is perhaps pretty generally true that a check 
encountered in the course of natural unanalytic action 
affords the occasion for analysis. 

Analysis and synthesis — to use these old terms in a 
somewhat new way — are two general directions in which 
the acquisition of learned equipment proceeds, addi- 
tional to the simple process typified by the conditioned 
reflex. The analytic process is better known in per- 
ceptual reactions, where it seems to consist, as just said, 
in being brought to a halt in the course of unanalyzed 
reaction to a situation as a whole, and, while in this 
suspended state, being affected by elements of the situa- 
tion which previously had no distinct influence. The 
synthetic process is visible in both perceptual and motor 
reactions. Either perceptual or motor reactions, once 
they have become easy through practice, may be com- 
bined into 'higher units'. The drive actuating the pro- 
cess of combination is nothing else than the struggle for 
speed, efficiency, economy — in a word, for success in 
whatever undertaking is on foot. The means by which 
the combination is realized is an enlarging of the span 
of action, taking the form, in motor reactions, of antici- 
pating the movements that are just ahead, and, in 
perception, of holding back from reacting to a single 
stimulus till others also have a chance to exert their 
influence; in either case, a coordination is effected be- 
tween two or more elementary reactions, and a higher 
unit of reaction results which may, by repetition, become 
a well-trained and fixed possession of the individual. 



100 DYNAMIC PSYCHOLOGY 

Learned equipment, so far as iadicated above, con- 
sists in new 'mechanisms'; and the question remains 
whether there is any similar development by the indi- 
vidual of new 'drives'. The conditioned reflex type of 
process certainly occurs with drives, as already illus- 
trated in the case of laughter. That is, the mirthful 
tendency, which, once aroused, has the character of 
a drive, becomes attached in the course of experience to 
other than its natural stimuli. The same is true of all 
instinctive tendencies. They come to be aroused by 
stimuli that originally had no power to arouse them. 

Native drives may also become combined into mixed 
or compound motives. A given object may be an ef- 
fective stimulus for two or more natural tendencies, 
and if the object frequently recurs in an individual's 
experience, these tendencies may become organized 
about that object as a center into a 'higher unit' of 
drive, analogous to the higher units spoken of above in 
the case of mechanisms. This is essentially the process 
by which 'sentiments' of love and respect, and others, 
are developed, according to the view of Shand and 
McDougall.^ Such a compound drive may be organized 
about a single object or about a class of objects. Chil- 
dren arouse in adults the impulse to protect them and 
also the tendency towards amusement ; and the attitude 
of adults towards children is a more or less fixed com- 
pound of these two tendencies. One's own child arouses 
in addition the sense of possession and pride; and thus 
the motive that prompts the parent in his dealings with 
his child is rather a mixed motive, and a motive that 

1 A convenient reference is the latter's Social Psychology, Chapters 
V and VI. 



ACQUIRED OR LEARNED EQUIPMENT loi 

has been developed in his experience. In the same way, 
one's attitude towards persons of the opposite sex is 
Hkely to be composed of sex attraction, curiosity, fear 
and uncertainty, lack of complete sympathy, and es- 
thetic appreciation; and this attitude is not static but 
a driving force that helps to determine behavior. Sim- 
ilar attitudes grow up in the course of experience 
towards servants, masters, and other classes of persons. 
It would be a mistake to suppose that behavior towards 
any such class of persons is a purely automatic learned 
response. There are, indeed, certain fixed habits of 
response in the way of manners ; but the behavior of an 
individual towards persons of a given class may vary 
indefinitely in changing circumstances, and all the while 
remain 'in keeping'. Instead of merely arousing a 
purely motor response, a person of a given class arouses 
first of all the habitual attitude towards members of 
that class, and this attitude (or, better, 'drive') con- 
tributes to the selection of the particular mechanisms 
that give the overt behavior. 

Whether combination is balanced, as in the process of 
acquiring mechanisms, by an analysis that breaks up 
natural compound drives and so in effect increases the 
diversity of motive forces, is rather questionable; at 
least, there is nothing definite to say on the matter. 
The partial elimination of a drive from the individual, 
as the result of his training — a process analogous to the 
negative adaptation or dissociation spoken of under the 
head of mechanisms — is undoubtedly a fact. We learn 
not simply to avoid the overt expression of anger, but 
even to avoid getting angry and being easily 'offended'. 
Not that anger as a motive force is entirely eliminated 



102 DYNAMIC PSYCHOLOGY 

from any one; but its influence is diminished in many. 
The child is angered and strikes; the effect of this be- 
havior being often disagreeable to himself, he learns to 
restrain his actions when angry; but ungratified anger 
being itself a disagreeable state, he later learns to re- 
strain his anger also, and to go on the even tenor of his 
way, driven by other motives and undeflected by the 
distraction of getting angry. 

Besides the elimination of drives, their attachment to 
new stimuli and their combinations, there is another 
source of acquired motive forces. It is a general prin- 
ciple of human activity that we are interested in over- 
coming difficulties and interested, on the other hand, 
in what we can do successfully — in a word, we are in- 
terested in successfully overcoming difficulties. The 
difficulty may lie on the side of motor execution of an 
act or on the side of perceiving and grasping a state of 
affairs, or on both sides at once. Action that is too easy 
because all the difficulties have been smoothed away or 
already subjugated by well-formed habits is automatic 
rather than interesting, and action that meets with un- 
surmoun table obstacles is distinctly annoying; but ac- 
tion that encounters resistance but overcomes it with- 
out resorting to the last ounce of effort is distinctly 
interesting. Now, as we get acquainted with the world, 
we learn to perceive and apprehend objects and thus 
generate new interests; for every object that is suffi- 
ciently novel to cause some difficulty in apprehension, 
while still within the power of our trained powers of 
perception, is an Interesting object to us, and we are 
driven to apprehend it by the impulse to surmount the 
difficulty that it presents. In the same way, a motor 



ACQUIRED OR LEARNED EQUIPMENT 103 

activity for which we have well-trained mechanisms, 
while still sufficiently novel to tax our powers somewhat, 
is an interesting action to perform, and we are driven to 
its performance by the impulse towards overcoming 
the surmountable that it offers. Those who, like 
McDougall, attempt to trace all motive force to the 
instincts, would regard such acts as driven by the native 
impulses of curiosity and manipulation ; but in so doing 
they miss the point. There is not an undifferentiated 
reservoir of motive force, to be called curiosity, that 
can be led off into one or another act of perception ; but 
curiosity is simply a collective name for an indefinite 
number of impulses, each of which is dependent on the 
existence of some degree of ability to perceive and under- 
stand a certain object. The child shows curiosity first 
with regard to bright lights and sharp contrasts, which 
are the natural stimuli for his eye movements; later, 
after he has learned to some extent to know persons and 
things, his curiosity is directed towards them ; and when 
he has begun to perceive the relations of things, he shows 
curiosity regarding these relations. His capacity to 
acquire mechanisms for handling various sorts of ob- 
jects is native, to be sure, but it is only as this capacity 
is developed by training that the curiosity appears. In 
other words, curiosity, the driving force in any per- 
ceptual act, is better conceived as the interest in that 
particular perceptual act, or, more intelligibly, in that 
particular object. As then the child becomes able by 
his experience to apprehend objects, he comes to have 
new interests, new driving forces for his perception. 
Similar remarks can be made regarding the develop- 
ment of interest in skilled movements. 



104 DYNAMIC PSYCHOLOGY 

The point at issue is very well brought out in the case 
of a game of skill. The motive that drives the chess 
player to his chess, or the golf player to his golf, is ^ot 
at all adequately accounted for by referring to an un- 
differentiated reservoir of curiosity or manipulativeness. 
The one is driven precisely by an interest in chess and 
the other by an interest in golf. The driving forces are 
specific, and acquired in the learning of these games. In 
the same way, while a man may enter a certain line of 
business from a purely external economic motive, he 
develops an interest in the business for its own sake 
(unless he is entirely out of his element), as he acquires 
mastery of its problems and processes; and the motive 
force that drives him in the daily task, provided of 
course this does not degenerate into mere automatic 
routine, is precisely an interest in the problems con- 
fronting him and in the processes by which he is able to 
deal with those problems. The end furnishes the motive 
force for the search for means, but once the means are 
found, they are apt to become interesting on their own 
account. 

In short, the power of acquiring new mechanisms 
possessed by the human mind is at the same time a 
power of acquiring new drives; for every mechanism, 
when at that stage of its development when it has 
reached a degree of effectiveness without having yet 
become entirely automatic, is itself a drive and capable 
of motivating activities that lie beyond its immediate 
scope. The primal forces of hunger, fear, sex, and the 
rest, continue in force, but do not by any means, even 
with their combinations, account for the sum total of 
drives actuating the experienced individual. 



V 

THE FACTOR OF SELECTION 
AND CONTROL 

There is a certain analogy between a man and a 
manufacturing plant — a big, complex plant, equipped 
to deal with many sorts of raw material and to turn out 
a great variety of finished products. Beginning with an 
outfit of fundamental mechanisms, this plant has de- 
veloped and installed a great variety of special linkages, 
combinations, and economies adapted to the work it has 
found to do. In so far as the future demands made upon 
it remain the same as those it has met in the past, it is 
equipped for meeting them ; if new demands arise, new 
equipment will have to be developed ; if old equipment 
is present for which there is no further demand, it is not 
thrown out — there being no way of doing that — but it 
grows stiff and rusty with disuse, and may be alto- 
gether lost sight of till some day when, perhaps, the old 
demand arises again, and the old machine responds as 
best it can, and may prove, after being limbered up by 
activity, to be still a good functional unit — or may need 
to be mostly reconstructed. An inventory of the equip- 
ment of the plant at any time would show some pieces 
in constant use, some in frequent use and perfect work- 
ing order, and others of all degrees of readiness or un- 
readiness, due to the frequency and recency of their 
past use. Some pieces are falling apart through dis- 
use ; some have never been fully constructed ; and some 



io6 DYNAMIC PSYCHOLOGY 

that never have found a use are still in the vague, un- 
formed state in which they were provided in the original 
outfit of the plant. At any one moment, only a small 
part of this total equipment is in action, the rest remain- 
ing in a resting condition, from which it is awakened — 
to shift to terms more nearly descriptive of what hap- 
pens in a man or animal — by something acting upon it 
as a stimulus. 

A man carries around with him a vast assortment of 
possibilities of action. The best conception of a 'pos- 
sibility of action' is undoubtedly that of a neural 
mechanism so connected with other neural mechanisms 
and with the sense organs and muscles as to give the 
action when aroused. The question now before us is 
as to what determines which of the many possible ac- 
tions shall become actual at a given time — as to how 
some are activated while pthers are left inactive^as to 
the arrangement by which drive is at any moment ap- 
plied to certain mechanisms and not to others. It is a 
question of selection, management, and control. 

The fundamental thing in selection is undoubtedly 
the linkages, some provided by nature and others es- 
tablished by previous training, between actions and 
their exciting stimuli. Actions are reactions, being con- 
nected by nature or training with certain stimuli; and 
unless the stimulus occurs the reaction does not occur, 
but its mechanisms remain in the resting condition. 
The mechanism for flight exists in good working order 
in an animal, but unless the situation confronting the 
animal contains something that the animal naturally 
fears or has learned to fear, the flight mechanism is not 
activated. Thus the selective agency is very largely 



SELECTION AND CONTROL 107 

to be sought in the situation confronting the animal or 
man. 

Little further would require to be said regarding se- 
lection, if it were true that each stimulus were simply 
joined to one reaction, each reaction to a single stimulus, 
and if stimuli always came one at a time. As a matter 
of fact, none of these things is true. The same stimulus 
may have become linked with two or more reactions, 
and the same act with two or more stimuli; and the 
situation presented is always complex, containing a 
number of elements that are capable of acting as stim- 
uli to different reactions. Under such conditions, the 
question of selection is very real and not at all easy to 
answer in full. 

Let us revert for a moment to the cat in the puzzle- 
box. The situation is complex: confinement, food out- 
side, bars, spaces, and other points that can be attacked. 
The cat possesses a variety of reactions to this situation. 
It brings out its reactions in succession, attacking first 
one and then another part of the cage — or, as we might 
also say, responding first to one and then to another fea- 
ture of the situation. Some one feature has an advan- 
tage over the others, and gets itself responded to first ; 
but it loses its advantage when reaction to it does not 
bring the consummation at which the animal is aiming, 
and some other feature takes its turn as the stimulus 
evoking the next reaction. As related to the problem of 
selection, the cat's behavior shows: (i) several possible 
reactions to the same situation; (2) the occurrence of the 
reactions one at a time and not simultaneously ; (3) an 
advantage of some of these over others; (4) that, on 
being thrown back defeated from one line of attack, the 



I08 DYNAMIC PSYCHOLOGY 

cat becomes responsive to other features which at first 
did not arouse reaction; and (5) that all of these re- 
actions are of the nature of preparatory reactions, lead- 
ing towards the consummation of escape and eating, 
and that without the drive towards this consummatory 
reaction, none of the^e particular preparatory reactions 
would be evoked, but still others, such as lying down and 
purring, might take their place. Simple animal be- 
havior thus furnishes a fairly complete outline of the 
psychology of selection and control; and it is only 
necessary to elaborate each of these five points and to 
show their application at different levels of behavior, 
including the intellectual and moral life of man. 

MULTIPLE POSSIBILITIES OF REACTION 

Evidently there would be no room for selection except 
for the existence in the individual of two or more mech- 
anisms responsive to the same object or situation. 
Jennings 1 has demonstrated varied reaction in the low- 
est forms of animals. Often a protozoan possesses two 
forms of avoiding reaction, the one, less energetic, con- 
sisting in a simple contraction or bending aside; the 
other, more energetic and efficacious, amounting to 
flight. Which of these reactions shall actually be 
aroused by a given stimulus depends not only on the 
stimulus, but also on the inner condition of the animal, 
which in turn is largely determined by the stimuli that 
have gone just before. A weak but somewhat harmful 
stimulus gives at first the weak avoiding reaction, but 
if repeated at short intervals comes in time to produce 
flight. A stimulus that is harmless, though much like 

^ Behavior of the Lower Organisms, New York, 1906.., 



SELECTION AND CONTROL 109 

a harmful stimulus, is likely to give at first the weak 
avoiding reaction, and then, after a number of repeti- 
tions, no reaction, the animal having become adapted to 
it. Thus the animal possesses three possible responses: 
the weak avoiding, the strong avoiding, and rest ; and 
which of these it shall put forth in response to a given 
stimulus depends not alone on the stimulus, but on the 
animal's owti internal condition. The inner condition 
thus appears as a selective agent in determining which 
reaction shall be made. 

The same thing appears In other instances of animal 
behavior. Curiosity and fear may both be excited by 
the same strange object; in fact, you may sometimes 
see an animal almost balanced between the two, now 
approaching the object, then suddenly taking flight, 
only to come back a moment later to explore further. 
Fighting and toleration, or food-getting and disgust, 
may similarly be almost balanced against each other. 

A strange situation always offers a number of differ- 
ent objects calling for attention and exploration. 
Placed in unfamiliar surroundings, a man notices first 
one, then another and another object, thus going 
through varied reaction of the perceptual sort. At any 
time a large number of stimuli act upon us, through 
eyes, ears, and skin ; but some one of these stimuli is at 
any moment attended to rather than the others, or it 
may be that no one of the external stimuli receives at- 
tention, the individual being absorbed in his own 
thoughts. 

In thinking or reverie, one idea calls up another, by 
association, as we say; the first Idea being the stimulus 
that evokes the second as a response. Now any idea 



no DYNAMIC PSYCHOLOGY 

has in the past become asssociated with a number of 
others, and can call up any one of them. This is nicely 
brought out by an experiment in what is called 'free 
association'. The experimenter instructs his subject to 
respond to a word which is to be spoken by any other 
word, the first suggested by the given word. If the 
stimulus word given is 'window', the response made by 
one person will be 'pane', by another 'frame', by an- 
other 'curtain', by another 'house', by another 'view', by 
another 'Gothic', any one of which is recognizable as 
easily suggested by the stimulus word, though only one 
or a very few will occur instantly to any one person. 
In associative thinking, in fact, varied response is even 
more in evidence than elsewhere, but everywhere in 
animal and human behavior the principle holds that 
more than one response is available to any situation, 
and that inner conditions must be taken into account 
in explaining the actual occurrence of one rather than 
another reaction. 

THE MUTUAL EXCLUSION OF ALTERNATIVE RESPONSES 

Though more than one response to a stimulus or 
complex of stimuli is possible, only one, as a general 
principle, is actually evoked at a given instant. The 
case in which this principle is least clear is that of free 
association, just mentioned. Here it sometimes happens 
that more than one response word is suggested at the 
same instant, or so nearly at the same instant as to seem 
so, introspectively. Yet even here it is evident that 
many responses that are perfectly possible for the indi- 
vidual are actually not aroused at a given moment. 
The opposite principle, which might from physical 



SELECTION AND CONTROL in 

analogy be expected to hold, according to which every 
response that has become linked with the stimulus 
word should be evoked, some, perhaps, strongly and 
others weakly, in accordance with the closeness of the 
linkage — this principle does not hold at all, but there 
is at least a close approximation to the principle first 
stated. In the protozoan, either the strong or the weak 
avoiding reaction, or no reaction, is at any moment 
aroused; in the cat in the puzzle-box, a succession of 
reactions appears, one at a time ; in the animal balanced 
between fear and curiosity, one or the other tendency 
has at any instant the advantage and the other is for 
that instant suppressed. 

The mutual exclusion of alternative reactions appears 
very clearly in the sphere of reflex action. Let the 
hinder part of a dog be rendered a purely reflex machine 
by a cut across the spinal cord, separating the lower 
or rear half of it from the influence of the brain. This 
'spinal animal' shows the reflexes in a relatively pure 
and simple condition, undisturbed and ungovemed by 
the brain. If now one hind paw is pinched, that paw is 
drawn up, while the other leg is extended, but if both 
paws are pinched at the same time, both are not drawn 
up, but one or the other is drawn up and the other 
extended — in other words, one of the two compound 
reflexes that are simultaneously excited is actually 
evoked and the other is excluded. A somewhat more 
complex reflex is that of scratching when the flank is 
irritated. If the right flank is irritated, the right hind 
leg is brought up and scratches, while the left hind leg 
is extended and supports the trunk during the scratch- 
ing movement. If both flanks are simultaneously ir- 



112 DYNAMIC PSYCHOLOGY 

ritated, it would be impossible to execute both scratch- 
ing movements, right and left, simultaneously, since 
either movement requires the leg that is not scratching 
to be extended. It is impossible, we say; but physically 
it is impossible only in the sense that both movements 
could not be efficiently carried out together, and we 
might expect the result of simultaneous excitation of 
both to be a sort of compromise, analogous to the par- 
allelogram of forces, giving a half-way position and 
action of each leg. No such compromise occurs — and it 
is one of the fundamental peculiarities of animal 
mechanics that it does not occur — but what happens is 
that either the right or the left leg will be brought up 
and scratch, while the other is extended. If, however, 
the bilateral irritation continues, this first response 
gives way suddenly, after a time, to the opposite. In 
other words, one of the two possible responses to the 
situation is executed at any one time, and the other 
cut out or inhibited ; but, if the situation continues un- 
changed, there is a shift, the inhibited response having 
its turn, while the other is now inhibited. 

This principle of the reciprocal inhibition of antagon- 
istic reactions is one of the important contributions of 
Sherrington 1 to the knowledge of reflex action. It is 
not the only principle that he found operative. Some- 
times two reflexes are aroused together, but that is when 
they work together harmoniously, and in fact unite to 
form a compound reflex. Both of these principles — 
that of the reciprocal inhibition of antagonistic reactions, 
and that of the union of allied or harmonious reactions 
— can be observed In mental as well as in reflex action. 

1 See his Integrative Action of the Nervous System, New York, 1906. 



SELECTION AND CONTROL 113 

One instance that is not far removed from the reflex 
level is seen in the miovements of the eyes towards ob- 
jects in the field of view — in 'looking at' objects. An 
object seen off to the side, in 'indirect vision', acts as 
a stimulus to turn the eyes in its direction, by which 
motion the object comes into clear vision. Very often 
it happens that there are tw^o objects in the field of view, 
one to the right and the other to the left, simultaneously 
attracting the eye. If the eye followed the law of the 
parallelogram of forces, it would remain staring at some 
point intermediate between the two that had attracted 
it. What it does is to disregard one object, for the 
moment, at least, and turn towards the other. After 
this is examined, the object at first neglected may have 
its turn. These eye movements are a type of the ex- 
ploratory reaction ; and what is true of this case is true 
generally of the exploration of a complex situation, or, 
as we may otherwise express it, of attention to a com- 
plex situation. Of all the stimuli that simultaneously 
tend to attract attention, only one gets attended to at 
any instant, but several do so successively. The other 
principle, indeed, of union of harmonious responses, 
comes also into play in the sphere of attention, in that 
two objects can be attended to at once, provided they 
can be perceived as parts of a unitary though compound 
object. 

The two principles come out clearly in the case of 
binocular vision. The two eyes, being in slightly differ- 
ent places, get different views of any near-by solid ob- 
ject, but we do not ordinarily notice these two appear- 
ances, but, combining them, perceive a single object so 
placed in space as to give the two views to the two eyes. 



114 



DYNAMIC PSYCHOLOGY 



If, however, the stimuli affecting the two eyes are not 
such as will unite to give the perception of a single ob- 
ject, we get reciprocal inhibition, or, as it is here called, 
rivalry. Let a red glass be held before one eye and a 
green glass before the other, and let the eyes be directed 
towards a white wall. Then, according to the stimuli 
affecting our eyes, we should see a wall that is red and 
green at the same time and place ; but such a combina- 
tion as this we are unable to make. What we see is, first, 




THE STAIRCASE FIGURE 



a red wall, the green entirely disappearing, and then, 
after a time, a green wall, the red disappearing; and so 
on alternately. Our visual apparatus behaves in the 
same way as the spinal animal stimulated at once to 
right and left scratchings. 

Another striking instance of the same thing Is af- 
forded by what are called ambiguous figures, many of 
which are drawings easily suggesting solid objects, but 
drawn without perspective, and equally well fitted to 
represent either of two different solids. As you exam- 



SELECTION AND CONTROL ' 115 

ine such a drawing, you see it first as one of the solid 
objects and then as the other, the two alternating as in 
the case of binocular rivalry. The simplest ambiguous 
figure is perhaps the dot figure, the dots being either 
regularly or irregularly arranged. In either case, the 
dots, as you examine them, fall into patterns, and the 
patterns change from moment to moment. You make, 
that is to say, a variety of perceptual reactions to the 
same continuing situation, but you make only one at 
a time. These instances of alternating and mutually 



m 



TWO DOT FIGURES 

exclusive perceptions are curiosities, but in a general 
way they are typical of all perception, since always the 
situation confronting the observer is capable of arous- 
ing different percepts, only one of which occurs at any 
one moment, though several may occur in succession. 

ADVANTAGE POSSESSED BY ONE ALTERNATIVE 
REACTION OVER THE OTHERS 

That one of the various alternative reactions which is 
first evoked evidently has a certain advantage over the 
others, and the question arises as to what gives it this 



Ii6 DYNAMIC PSYCHOLOGY 

advantage. When a number of stimuli are acting simul- 
taneously on a man or animal, the most intense of them 
has an advantage over the others, and is likely to be 
the first noticed and reacted to. A moving object has 
an advantage over one that is at rest ; a sudden stimulus 
over one that has continued for some time with no 
change, or only a gradual change; certain colors have 
an advantage over others that are not so 'striking', and 
certain objects, in the case of the human child especially 
human faces, have an advantage over other objects. 
All this by force of original nature. 
The advantage of one reaction over another must be 
sought on the side of the reaction as well as on that of 
the stimulus. Certain reactions are more imperative 
than others, and have the 'right of way' through the 
nerve centers. The avoiding or self-protective reactions 
have an advantage over others, so that a painful or 
threatening object usually gets itself reacted to in pref- 
erence to any other stimulus that may be present. Thus 
a slight rustling noise may get a response in preference 
to bright or otherwise interesting objects. The prin- 
ciple of economy also makes its appearance here, as 
shown by the fact that a stimulus will ordinarily evoke 
a reaction of moderate strength before it can elicit one 
of great force. This was seen in the behavior of the 
protozoan when affected by a harmful stimulus; the 
first reaction called out was the weak avoiding reaction, 
and the strong reaction only occurred when the weak 
did not suffice. In general, the strength of a reaction 
is apt to be more or less proportional to the strength of 
the stimulus, so that for any strength of stimulus, a re- 
action of corresponding force will have the advantage. 



SELECTION AND CONTROL 1 17 

Besides these advantages naturally possessed by one 
stimulus or reaction over another, there are other ad- 
vantages due to training. When two reactions have 
become attached to the same stimulus, one may be 
more strongly attached to it than the other. The con- 
nection between stimulus and response is strengthened 
by vigorous exercise of the connection, by frequent 
exercise of the connection, and by recent exercise of the 
connection. Each of these factors has something to do 
with the strength of the connection between stimulus 
and response, and their sum total determines the total 
advantage possessed by one or another response to the 
same stimulus, so far as this advantage is determined by 
the 'law of exercise'. Besides this, the 'law of effect' 
must also be taken into account. When one of two 
possible reactions to a given stimulus has in the past 
led to punishment, that response is placed at a disad- 
vantage as compared with the other which has not been 
punished. When the reaction to a stimulus, however 
frequently made in the past, has given way to a condi- 
tion of negative adaptation, that stimulus is placed in 
a position of disadvantage as compared with a stimulus 
to which adaptation has not occurred. When reaction 
to one feature of a situation has resulted in a check or 
failure, that stimulus is placed in a position of disad- 
vantage ; and when reaction to a particular feature has 
brought success and satisfaction, that reaction has the 
advantage over all others that are capable of being 
aroused by the given situation. Thus the advantage 
of one possible reaction over another, due to the present 
strength of the connection between situation and re- 



Ii8 DYNAMIC PSYCHOLOGY 

sponse, is determined in a very complex way by the 
original nature and past history of the individual. 

SHIFTING OF ADVANTAGE FROM ONE REACTION 
TO ANOTHER 

The initial advantage possessed by one reaction may 
disappear quickly as the situation continues unchanged, 
and thus the phenomenon of varied reaction be produced. 

The simplest case of this is perhaps to be found in 
the often-mentioned negative adaptation to a continued 
or frequently repeated stimulus. A noise which at 
first startles us, i. e., arouses that peculiar form of the 
attentive or exploratory reaction known as the reflex 
start, no longer arouses this reaction if immediately 
repeated, and comes soon to be altogether overlooked. 
At first possessing an advantage over other stimuli, it 
quickly loses this advantage. An object which at its 
first appearance attracts the eye in preference to any 
other object in the field of view cannot hold the atten- 
tion for long unless it is a complex or moving object 
and so capable of arousing a number of different per- 
ceptual reactions — in other words, the attention is not 
held for long by a simple and unvarying object. We 
become adapted to it, and something else gets the ad- 
vantage and arouses attention in its turn. 

This fact appears with most precision in the rivalry 
between the two contrasting fields of view, or in that 
between the two interpretations of an ambiguous fig-, 
ure. In binocular rivalry, the more brilliant or striking 
color has at first the advantage, and excludes the other 
from conscious perception ; but shortly the latter gains 
the advantage and excludes the former. The first 



SELECTION AND CONTROL 119 

reaction has become fatigued, or it might be better to 
say that negative adaptation has set in against it. In 
ambiguous figures, the law of past exercise comes first 
into play, and the figure is perceived as the object most 
frequently presenting this appearance; but again fa- 
tigue or adaptation enters, and the most usual interpre- 
tation loses its advantage, and gives way for a time to 
the less usual, only to reassert itself as soon as fatigue 
or adaptation has operated to the disadvantage of the 
latter. Adaptation is probably a better concept to 
work with here than fatigue ; at least, in some cases the 
dropping out of consciousness of an object that was 
at first perceived can scarcely be regarded as a case of 
fatigue. When the ticking of the clock, to which I have 
become adapted, suddenly ceases, I 'wake up' with a 
start, and a sense that something, I do not know what, 
has happened. This could scarcely occur if I had sim- 
ply become fatigued to the recurring noise, for fatigue 
would mean that my mechanism for dealing with the 
noise had been thrown out of function — its fuses burned 
out, as it were — and then cessation of the stimulus 
would produce no sudden response, but simply give an 
opportunity for the gradual recovery of the fatigued 
mechanism. But adaptation to the noise might very 
well mean that some mechanism was dealing with it 
in a way not to interfere with other, more conscious 
processes, but rising to meet it rhythmically, in time 
with its periodical recurrence; and that, on the cessa- 
tion of the noise, this mechanism, not receiving the 
stimulus which it was 'rising to meet', gave a sort of 
jolt to the other active mechanisms and so produced a 
sudden disturbance in their action. However this may 



120 DYNAMIC PSYCHOLOGY 

be, fatigue or else adaptation seems a good explanation 
of very many cases of displacement of advantage from 
one stimulus to another, and from one reaction to an- 
other. 

Another important cause of shifting from one reaction 
to another has already been mentioned in connection 
with the subject of learning. When the first reaction 
made results in pain or a check, it loses its advantage 
for the moment, at least, and gives way to some other 
reaction. 

THE DRIVE AS SELECTIVE AGENCY 

The most characteristic thing about selection is 
brought home to us on considering attentively this last- 
mentioned case, in which a check acts to deprive one 
tendency to action of its initial advantage and transfer 
this advantage to another tendency. A check implies 
a trend in a certain direction. Failure implies a goal 
that is not reached. When the cat, squeezing between 
the bars of a cage and meeting resistance, turns to 
some other point of attack, it is because, in common 
speech, it is trying to get out. It is this tendency to- 
wards escape and securing the food placed outside — 
whatever form the tendency may take in the cat's con- 
sciousness — that controls its reactions to the various 
features of the situation confronting it. Without this 
tendency, it would not attack the parts of the cage as it 
does, nor restlessly shift from one reaction to another 
till some one gave success. This tendency to escape is 
a mechanism aroused by the stimulus of confinement 
with food outside; once aroused and not immediately 
satisfied, it acts as a drive to the mechanisms that pro- 



SELECTION AND CONTROL I2I 

duce the various specific reactions of the cat to different 
parts of the cage. It acts as a reinforcement to certain 
reactions, selecting them one after another; and it acts 
as an inhibition to other reactions, preventing the cat, 
for example, from reacting to a convenient spot by 
lying down there. The drive acts as a selective agency, 
as a controlling agency. 

The same thing is seen in another animal experiment 
already described. A rat, on being first placed In a 
strange maze, reacts by exploration ; after once finding 
food, it behaves in quite a different way, without ran- 
dom exploration, but with urgency and haste. It has 
got a drive which eliminates otherwise preferred re- 
actions and greatly increases the energy of behavior. 

The selective force of drives is seen in all phases of 
human behavior, and nowhere more clearly than in 
observation and mental work. 

What shall be obser\^ed in a complex presented situ- 
ation is determined not only by such factors as intensity, 
suddenness, and movement of a stimulus and pre- 
formed habits of attention, but very much by the in- 
terest that is momentarily dominant. The present 
interest is a drive selecting certain objects for observa- 
tion. Interest sometimes takes the definite form of a 
question, and objects which have been overlooked a 
hundred times will come Into notice when a question Is 
asked regarding them. Questions suggested or sug- 
gesting themselves to the beginner In botany, for In- 
stance, cause him to see plants and parts of plants that 
have been before him all his life but never observed 
before. The Importance of the question as a spur to 
accuracy of observation is fully recognized In the scl- 



122 DYNAMIC PSYCHOLOGY 

ences ; to be sure of your fact you must have been read}^ 
and looking for it, an unprepared observation being 
generally unreliable. We do not become scientific 
observers by simply going out into the presence of 
nature with the general intention of observing, but by 
first getting some question in mind which we can answer 
by observation of nature. General familiarity with a 
thing, in the sense of having lived with it, does not 
qualify one as a scientific expert regarding that thing. 
One may prove to have little exact knowledge regarding 
a familiar thing, simply because one has been satisfied 
with a very summary observation of it and has taken 
it thenceforward as a 'matter of course'. The question, 
then, is decidedly to be called a drive; it arouses certain 
activities which would not be aroused by the external 
objects alone. It reinforces the effect of certain objects 
and incidentally inhibits the effect of other objects, for 
observation sharpened by a question is keen only for 
the answer to that question and neglectful of whatever 
is irrelevant to it. 

Instead of speaking of the question as the driving 
force in keen observation, we might have said that curi- 
osity was the driving force; but it is not curiosity as 
a general motive, but curiosity regarding some partic- 
ular thing. 'Curiosity' sounds like a general motive 
force leading to observation of anything and every- 
thing. Now there is such a thing as a general explor- 
atory tendency, leading the child, especially, to go out 
in search of the novel. But the essence of interests and 
questions is to be specific. It is the capacity to become 
interested in certain classes of object, and in certain 
problems regarding objects, that leads to systematic 



SELECTION AND CONTROL 123 

and painstaking observation. The motive force leading 
to the great activity of the scientific observer is not 
some vague force in the background, but is bound up 
with the actual perception and understanding of ob- 
jects. That is to say, the interest in a class of objects 
is inherent in the mechanism for dealing with that class 
of objects. It is not a general curiosity, but interest 
awakened in a certain class of objects, that furnishes the 
drive for observation. 

In mental work, the factor of selection is very impor- 
tant. Leaving to the next chapter the more original 
sort of thinking, we shall consider here the routine and 
smooth-running forms of mental activity. Habit and 
previously formed associations are important here, and 
the conclusion might easily be suggested that these 
forms of mental work were purely automatic responses 
to presented situations, requiring no inner drive or 
selective agency. This is very far from being true. The 
multiplication and addition tables become to the well- 
trained computer very nearly automatic ; but the point 
is that any two numbers, as eight and five, have asso- 
ciations both with their sum and with their product. 
It is a case of alternative reactions, and the question is 
how the computer manages to use the right set of 
associations for the work in hand. If you have before 
you several pairs of one-place numbers arranged in the 
form of examples in addition or multiplication, and say 
to yourself, 'Add these', you find that the sums imme- 
diately come to mind on looking at the examples; but 
if you say to yourself, 'Multiply these', the same ex- 
amples call up the products. Evidently the intention 
of adding or of multiplying switches in one set of asso- 



124 DYNAMIC PSYCHOLOGY 

ciatlons and switches out the other. In such cases the 
selective agency is often called the 'mental set' or ad- 
justment. The arithmetical mechanism of the com- 
puter is an adjustable machine that can be set for any 
one of several operations. When an adjustment has 
been well trained, it becomes itself almost automatic 
and works without coming much to consciousness, but 
it is none the less effective. The mental set, or inten- 
tion of performing a certain operation or solving a 
certain problem, is a drive, reinforcing certain associ- 
ative connections and inhibiting others, and thus exert- 
ing a selective influence. 

In reading, the context already taken in by the 
reader is a selective agency, determining which of sev- 
eral familiar meanings a given word shall suggest, and 
doing its work so well that generally only the appro- 
priate meaning occurs to mind at all. Here is a word 
that has half-a-dozen familiar meanings. Standing 
alone, it would suggest one or another of them, accord- 
ing to the relative strength of the associations as de- 
termined by past exercise, etc. But in context it calls 
up one particular meaning without reference to the 
relative strength of the various associations, provided, 
of course, that all are sufficiently strong to work easily. 
The determining factor is not the past history of the 
associations, but the present context. Nowhere is the 
selective factor more in evidence than in reading a story 
or watching a play. The situation as it has gradually 
taken shape in the mind of the reader or spectator gives 
the right interpretation to words and actions that, 
apart from their context, might have a variety of mean- 
ings. Comprehension of the general situation is a 



SELECTION AND CONTROL 125 

drive, producing greater interest and mental activity 
on the part of the observer than could possibly be 
aroused in him by isolated words or actions, and also 
selecting his associative reactions to them. Two effects 
of a drive are thus brought to light: general stimulus 
to activity, and selection of the particular activity that 
shall become active. 

In motor behavior and the life of action generally, 
these two effects of the drive are in evidence. Some- 
thing analogous to the 'context' operates to select from 
among the large repertory of acts those that fit the 
case. The ball player could do many things with the 
ball that has come to him; but unless he 'loses his 
head', he does the one thing that the whole situation 
demands. Decorum means the same kind of control 
exerted over action by perception of what the situation 
demands. Understanding the state of affairs means a 
certain 'frame of mind' that favors certain acts and 
thrusts others aside. Undoubtedly the factor of selec- 
tion operates in much the same way in the broader con- 
duct of life as it does in the comparatively narrow 
activities, such as computing, where its effects can be 
definitely noticed. 

In reviewing this discussion of the factor of selection, 
the reader will be left with the impression that much has 
been said of selection and its manner of working, but 
little of that which selects. What is the selective 
agency? Now the gist of the whole discussion is that 
there is no agency exclusively devoted to selection, no 
factor of selection that is nothing more than that. A 
tendency towards some consummatory reaction acts as 
a selective agency, but it is at the same time a tendency 



126 DYNAMIC PSYCHOLOGY 

towards a definite end. An interest acts as a selective 
agency, but it is also an interest in some specific thing 
or class of things. A question acts as a selective agency, 
but a question has always a specific content. A con- 
text acts as a selective agency, but the context means a 
concrete situation, with characteristics peculiar to it- 
self. Selective agencies are many, each of them being a 
special tendency or interest. fSelectiveness is a property 
of any tendency or interest, and not the property of 
some one general agency existing alongside of the specific 
tendencies. This is but to repeat what has been said 
before, to the effect that every drive is also a mechanism, 
and that any mechanism may conceivably be a drive. 
This doctrine does not, however, imply, as might ap- 
pear at first thought, that the personality is a mere col- 
lection of tendencies, with no organization and no con- 
trol. Some tendencies and interests are stronger than 
others in the individual, and a well-integrated personal- 
ity is organized about its master motives, these acting 
as selective agencies with respect to other tendencies. 
Few personalities are so thoroughly integrated that 
tendencies usually subordinated may not occasionally 
break away from control, and have things their own 
way for a time, selecting to suit themselves and in op- 
position to the usual master motives. Then follow 
regrets and sense of failure and an attempt to fortify 
the master motives against the time when the contrary 
tendencies shall again seek to assert themselves. There 
is perhaps no royal road to complete integration of the 
personality, but som^ wisdom can be gleaned from the 
fact that the master motives are not mere abstract 
selective and controlling agencies, but are interests with 



SELECTION AND CONTROL 127 

definite content. To strengthen a motive is then to 
become more interested in the objects towards which 
that motive is directed. For example: to master the 
tendencies to irritation that often disturb family life, 
the best hint is to become interested in the other side of 
the case, to look at the matters that are likely to be in 
dispute from the point of view of the other party. You 
will experience a certain inner resistance when you at- 
tempt to do this. There is a sense of humiliation and 
de-personalization in attempting to take another's point 
of view, arising from the fact that one's personality is 
shaped largely by antithesis with other persons. We 
'thank God that w^e are not as other men are'. But 
getting interested in another person's interests may 
mean the expansion of one's own personality, and the 
acquisition of master motives suited to act as selective 
agencies in the life of a group of persons. 



VI 
THE FACTOR OF ORIGINALITY 

A dynamic psychology that confined its attention to 
instinctive and habitual processes, even with due em- 
phasis on the selective factor, would not get beyond the 
more routine sort of behavior and mental work, and 
would create the suspicion of being a very one-sided 
affair. Certainly, if we are to understand the workings 
of the mind, we must understand the workings of those 
who distinctly possess minds: the Shakespeares and 
Newtons and Beethovens and Napoleons — the original 
geniuses in different fields of human activity. Inven- 
tion, discovery, artistic creation, independent thinking 
and acting are considered to be the special marks of 
mentality; it is imperative, accordingly, that we should 
here make some attempt to understand them. 

The great achievements of genius can only be exam- 
ined from afar, since it is unlikely that a great creative 
act will ever come directly under the eye of the psychol- 
ogist. Even if a genius should turn psychologist, he 
would find it difficult to come to close quarters with his 
great moments; since at such moments he would be 
carried away by the current of his thoughts, and not dis- 
posed to stop for a psychological observation. Real 
acts of genius would be as difficult as possible to intro- 
spect. So at least one imagines from the intense absorp- 
tion that seems to be characteristic of really creative 
activity. Newton boiling his watch instead of the eg^ 



FACTOR OF ORIGINALITY 129 

brought him for lunch, Gauss so absorbed in his mathe- 
matics for many hours at a stretch that even serious 
personal news could not attract his attention — ^whether 
or not these incidents are authentic — may fairly be 
taken as characteristic of the state of mind of highly 
original production. Another characteristic, often veri- 
fied in writers and composers, is an amazing speed of 
action at times of creative production. It may take 
a long time to get started, but, once in swing, production 
goes forward rapidly. Another noteworthy trait of the 
great genius is the quantity of his production: almost 
every really great painter, or composer, or writer, or 
discoverer, or inventor, has produced a surprising num- 
ber of works. Such industry points to the presence of a 
strong drive. 

Another thing worth noting is that each genius has 
his own special line of production. Some have been 
productive in two related lines, as painting and sculp- 
ture, or even generalship and government, or physics 
and mathematics. Sometimes a genius productive in 
one line has produced interesting, though not really 
important, works in quite a different line — Goethe's 
theory of colors, Caesar's works on grammar. It is 
really not a little remarkable that the great men of the 
earth are noted each for one, or at most two closely 
related sorts of achievement. It may mean the spe- 
cialization of native gifts. Probably it does mean that 
in part; probably Shakespeare could not have written 
Bacon's works, nor Bacon Shakespeare's, because their 
natural gifts lay in different directions. Yet the original 
genius often shows originality in more than one field, 
and the reason why he does not reach a high level of 



130 DYNAMIC PSYCHOLOGY 

production in more than one is largely lack of time. 
One may, as a tyro, be original in attitude, but not in 
accomplishment. One needs to appropriate the mate- 
rials already present in a science or art before being 
able to make significant additions to it. This is easily 
illustrated by the history of any science or art. Great 
artists seldom occur sporadically. What we find in the 
history of art — as in the case of Greek drama, or of 
Gothic architecture, or of modern music — is a develop- 
ment from crude and simple beginnings to ever greater 
complexity, richness, and refinement, each creative artist 
basing his work on that which immediately precedes 
him, till, it would seem, a limit is reached, and interest 
turns to some new style or new form of art. In science 
and invention, it is even more obvious that, however 
original a mind may be, it works out from the assimi- 
lated achievements of its predecessors. 

Another fact that stands out in the biographies of 
great geniuses is their early age at the time of their 
greatest originality. Alexander had finished his mar- 
vellous career at the age of thirty-three. Caesar, after 
a successful career as a politician, struck out as a mili- 
tary genius at the exceptionally advanced age of forty. 
Napoleon became chief of the French armies at twenty- 
seven, and fought his most successful campaigns within 
the next ten years. Newton published his New Theory 
of Light and Colors, one of his most original works, at 
the age of thirty. Helmholtz's greatest work began to 
appear in print when he was thirty-five. Beethoven's 
Third Symphony was composed when he was thirty- 
four, and his Fifth when he was thirty-six. Shake- 
speare began producing his plays at about twenty-seven, 



FACTOR OF ORIGINALITY 131 

reached the level of Romeo and Juliet at thirty, Julius 
Ccesar at thirty- five, Hamlet at thirty-seven, and had 
written nearly all by the time he was forty. Darwin's 
great Idea took shape In his mind when he was about 
twenty-five, though he devoted twenty years to estab- 
lishing It before giving It to the public. These cases are 
not exceptional in the early age of their great Ideas. 
We are prone to think of great men as oldish men, be- 
cause the portraits of them were usually made after 
their fame had become assured; but portraits of them 
at the time of their greatest originality would show 
young men, men old enough to have assimilated the 
work of their predecessors, but not so old as to have lost 
the ardor and flexibility of youth. 

If there is any other fact to be observed in a distant 
view of genius, it Is perhaps a remarkable keenness of 
perception in the field peculiar to any individual genius. 
Newton's discovery of gravitation — whether or not the 
incident of the falling apple ever occurred — amounted 
to the perception of an element of falling in the motion 
of the moon around the earth. The moon does not seem 
to fall towards the earth, for it always remains the same 
distance away. On the other hand, its inertia should 
carry it forward in a straight line, and its deviation from 
that line towards the earth is a sort of falling, and was 
recognized by Newton to be a special case of falling. 
Probably all original discoveries can be similarly stated 
as acts of keen perception. If you will re-read Caesar's 
Commentaries with the object of getting some insight 
into his genius, you will be struck by the frequency with 
which the statement is made that 'Caesar observed' this 
or that — what he observed being, indeed, the key to 



132 DYNAMIC PSYCHOLOGY 

the situation, and enabling him to master it. Napoleon, 
according to his own testimony, habitually went into 
battle without a fixed plan, trusting to the course of 
events to bring about a situation which, instantly per- 
ceived and utilized by him, would bring victory. The 
merit of a painter or of a poet is, often at least, his keen 
eye for form or color, or for the pathos or dramatic 
quality of a situation. 

Attempts to find the essential mark of genius in *an 
infinite capacity for taking pains', in 'complete objectiv- 
ity' as opposed to self-seeking (Schopenhauer), in 'love 
of truth' (Goethe), in the 'faculty of perceiving in an 
unhabitual way' (William James), err in the universality 
of the genius which they thus seem to presuppose. 
Genius is this — at least this : native capacity of a very 
high order for perceiving and handling a certain class of 
objects, the class differing with the particular bent of 
the individual's genius. The genius's spontaneous in- 
terest in this class of objects, his quick and penetrating 
apprehension of them, his masterful handling of them, 
his absorption in them to the neglect often of the com- 
moner interests of life, his remarkable persistence and 
industry in dealing with them, and his consequent pro- 
ductivity, are all the same trait under different names. 
Continued attention to a thing means that something 
is found in it, interest in a thing means ability to appre- 
hend it, mastery of a thing means understanding of it, 
absorption means interest and means that headway is 
being made, industry, of the type seen in the genius, 
means an interest in the thing for its own sake, means 
apprehension and mastery of the thing. The drive 
behind the industry of the genius is not the drive of 



FACTOR OF ORIGINALITY 133 

hunger, or sex, or rivalry — though any of these may 
contribute incentive — but is to be sought within the 
activity itself. The genius, in short, is an individual 
peculiarly adapted and responsive to certain aspects of 
reality. Contact with them arouses his responsive 
activity; he responds to them as naturally as the lion 
responds to the presence of prey. We have here, in 
other words, simply a clear case of the principle insisted 
upon in an earlier discussion of native capacities : that, 
namely, perceptual tendencies do not require a drive 
outside themselves, each being capable of furnishing 
drive for itself, even as instinctive hunting furnishes its 
own drive. The child is primarily interested in things, 
not for their practical value, i. e., as means to ulterior 
ends, but in each thing for itself. The child is curious 
and playful. He is interested in a thing because he has 
a response for it. The genius, having this capacity for 
dealing with some class of objects present in him to an 
unusual degree, is able to remain for an exceptionally 
long time curious about this class of objects and playful 
with them. The genius's activity, as has often been 
observed, though strenuous and painstaking, is rather 
play than work — ^which means that it is carried forward 
by its own inherent interest rather than by a drive from 
beyond itself. 

Leaving now the genius with his great originality, let 
us turn to the ordinary man, and even to the animal, 
and ask whether the factor of originality is at all opera- 
tive in his behavior. Recalling our earlier consideration 
of the process of learning, we see that originality is not 
absent from any animal that learns, since learning pro- 
duces new mechanisms, not provided by nature or pre- 



134 DYNAMIC PSYCHOLOGY 

vious learning. At the moment of learning a new reac- 
tion, therefore, there is present a factor of originality. 
Something new is achieved. The newness of the learned 
reaction may consist simply in the attachment of an 
old act to a new stimulus, i. e., to a stimulus that has 
not previously had the power of arousing this act. Even 
the conditioned reflex, and negative adaptation, accord- 
ingly, have an element of originality in them. The new- 
ness may also consist in the combination of acts into a 
new compound act, as seen especially in the acquisition 
of motor skill in typewriting and telegraphy. Again, 
the newness may consist in a specific responsiveness to 
some feature of a situation which previously did not act 
in isolation to arouse response, but only in combination. 
Here originality takes the form of analysis, as in the 
preceding case it took the form of synthesis. 

The originality here revealed is subject to certain 
limitations. Though it adds to native equipment, it 
does not absolutely go beyond nature, for evidently 
nature provided the possibility of the new reaction. 
Native equipment is provided by nature ready made; 
but acquired equipment is provided in the form of a 
capacity for learning. Again, originality does not take 
us absolutely beyond the bounds of the world as it is 
presented to us. We learn new adjustments to the 
world, we learn to perceive reality in certain particulars, 
and to manipulate it in certain ways. Just as even the 
dynamo and the telephone use the materials and forces 
of nature and are, in spite of their artificiality, after all 
natural objects and their actions natural processes, so 
the inventive act that originated them was a natural 
process and an adjustment to the natural world. You 



FACTOR OF ORIGINALITY 135 

can trace your ability to perform a certain skilled act 
back to the time when you learned it, and your learning 
of the act may properly be called the origin of that 
ability in you; but it is not an absolute origin, since it 
was, on the one side, an unfolding of your native ten- 
dencies and capacities, and on the other, a response to 
environmental conditions. It was, in short, an inter- 
action between you and the environment, and gave a 
new adjustment of your nature to nature outside. Even 
the originality of the genius is not absolute. 

If learning were purely passive or receptive, as it has 
often been conceived, novelties would still arise in the 
experience of the individual, but he would be so little 
concerned in originating them that we could scarcely 
speak of a factor of originality as operative in him. The 
fact is, however, that learning is a reactive process, and 
that what is learned is the reaction that one has given 
birth to. This is obviously so in learning a motor act, 
for we do not receive the act, do not have it impressed 
upon us, but make it in response to the stimulus acting 
on us, and by making it learn it. In perception and the 
learning of facts, the active role of the learner is less 
obvious; and, in fact, it was from considering this case 
to the exclusion of motor learning that philosophers 
were led to conceive of learning as a purely receptive 
process. But, in truth, perception is as much a reaction 
as is motor response. This is well seen in the cases, 
mentioned in a previous connection, of alternative per- 
cepts aroused by the same stimulus. Ambiguous figures 
give this varied perceptual reaction in an especially 
striking form, but any perception of an object that is 
not perfectly familiar or clear gives the same phenom- 



136 DYNAMIC PSYCHOLOGY 

enon of varied reaction, and the shifting of attention 
from one to another feature of a complex presented situ- 
ation is varied reaction again. Thus, perception is en- 
titled to be called reaction, and originality enters when- 
ever a new perception is achieved, and a new idea 
gained, as truly as when a new motor act is added to 
our equipment. Ideas are not delivered to us ready- 
made by our teachers, but are modes of response which 
we have to develop for ourselves. Newton, the original 
genius, comes unaided to see the revolution of the moon 
as a falling toward the earth; he then points out to his 
contemporaries the elements in the situation that have 
led him to this way of perceiving; and his contem- 
poraries, thus guided, begin to perceive the matter in 
the same way. It is as when on shipboard one person 
spies a distant sail and points it out to his fellow pas- 
sengers, who, thus assisted, are able to see it for them- 
selves. The factor of originality enters more largely 
into the performance of the discoverer, but is present 
to some degree in every one who is able, even with 
assistance, to break away from established modes of 
response and adopt new ones. 

The ordinary man, followed through his day's routine, 
reveals little originality. Surrounded for the most part 
by familiar objects, he perceives them in the old ways or 
neglects them as lie is wont. He meets the regular de- 
mands made on him by the regular acts that he has 
learned to make. Even if the objects that confront 
him are somewhat novel, he assimilates them to familiar 
types of object, and makes little response to their 
novelty; and even if the conditions he has to meet are 
somewhat new, he comes through, as best he may, with 



FACTOR OF ORIGINALITY 137 

his old stock of reactions. The inertia of habit carries 
him along ; and as he has become pretty well adapted to 
his circumstances, habit carries him along pretty 
smoothly. Yet some embers of originality are still 
smouldering within him and can be fanned into life 
when conditions are right. If we ask what are the con- 
ditions favorable to arousing the factor of originality, 
we find a long- accepted answer in the maxim, 'Necessity 
is the mother of invention'. 'Invention', broadly inter- 
preted, covers all forms of original behavior. The idea 
is that routine is the line of least resistance, departed 
from only under the spur of necessity. Necessity, to 
revert to our favorite mode of expression, furnishes the 
drive for original activity. Let us examine this maxim 
regarded as a law of dynamic psychology. 

We should not expect to find more than a half truth 
in a proverb; and so it is in this case. The necessity 
must not be too extreme, too dire, for, if it is, no free 
play is allowed, and the old reactions simply have to be 
employed. Under dire necessity, one rather reverts to 
instinct than progresses to invention. Invention usually 
requires a degree of leisure and freedom from immediate 
danger or want. 

Again, the necessity that gives birth to invention is 
not ordinarily a purely external necessity. Perhaps 
there is no purely external necessity in any case, for 
unless a man had the will to live, unless he had needs 
and tendencies within himself, external compulsion or 
deprivation would be indifferent to him. The necessity 
which drives a man is primarily his own need or ten- 
dency; and the external element in necessity consists in 
an obstruction to this inner tendency. It is when the 



138 DYNAMIC PSYCHOLOGY 

drive toward some consummatory reaction has been 
awakened in a man or animal, but progress toward the 
consummation is obstructed — ^while, nevertheless, a cer- 
tain leeway is afforded for exploration and trial and 
error — that the conditions for originative behavior are 
realized. 

The tendency that furnishes the drive for originative 
behavior — ^which, as already suggested, emphatically 
needs a drive, since it runs counter to the ease of rou- 
tine — must, according to some authors, be furnished by 
some one of the great primal instincts common to man 
and animals. Danger, hunger as the type of economic 
need, rivalry, and the sex impulse, have most often been 
assigned as the motive force, and any of them may cer- 
tainly furnish the drive. But there is no reason for thus 
limiting the possibilities. The motive force may be 
one of those added to the native stock in the experience 
of the individual; and, as the genius has shown us, it 
may be an objective interest. It is impossible to believe 
that Gauss, so absorbed in his mathematical discoveries 
as to be oblivious to hunger and the appeals of his 
friends, is driven by hunger, rivalry, or the sex impulse, 
or, in fact, by anything but his interest in what he is 
doing ; and the same is true in an humbler way of the 
devoted labors of lesser men. This point has already 
been sufficiently insisted upon. The drive may be any 
tendency to action which, once aroused and not im- 
mediately satisfied, continues awake and so in a position 
to supply impetus to other mechanisms. Any drive, 
obstructed, may give rise to originative activity. 

The conditions that excite original activity are, then, 
an awakened tendency toward some result and an ob- 



FACTOR OF ORIGINALITY 139 

struction encountered. If we would know the form of 
activity by which the obstruction is overcome, and the 
factor of originality revealed in action, we shall have to 
examine such comparatively humble instances as can 
be brought under experimental control, hoping that our 
results here will be applicable also to the higher mani- 
festations of originality ; for it is quite possible that the 
form of the process is the same in humble and noble 
instances, the difference lying in the field of exercise 
rather than in the form of the activity. 

Experiments have been conducted in solving prob- 
lems that were difificult enough to be genuine problems, 
without being so profound as to require a long time for 
their solution. The choice of problems has been dic- 
tated by the desire to get objective measures of success 
in solving the problem and at the same time reliable 
introspections regarding the mental process that led to 
the solution. Problems requiring some direct motor 
action are indicated, since both introspection and ob- 
jective measurement are easier here than when the 
action required is purely ideational ; but .studies made 
with the latter sort of problem have led to the same sort 
of conclusions. 

Ruger 1 chose mechanical puzzles as problems to be 
solved. The puzzle, -unfamiliar to the subject, was 
placed in his hands with instructions to solve it, no 
other assistance being given, unless perhaps the assur- 
ance that the puzzle could be solved. The situation 
confronting the human subject in this experiment was 
quite analogous to that confronting the animal in a 
puzzle box. The puzzle set the human subject is simply 

1 The Psychology of Efficiency, 1910. 



140 DYNAMIC PSYCHOLOGY 

more difficult, to correspond with his greater ability. 
The reaction of the human subject was, in many in- 
stances, surprisingly like that of the animal. He re- 
sorted at once to manipulation, twisting the puzzle this 
way and that, examining this or that part of it, and fol- 
lowing the suggestions offered by the part examined. 
When the first reaction resulted in a check, some other 
line of attack was substituted ; and thus the subject went 
from one attempt to another, exemplifying as well as an 
animal could the principles of varied reaction and of 
trial and error. In the course of these varied attempts, 
the solution would be reached, often so unexpectedly as 
to surprise the performer, who perhaps did not see at 
all how he had escaped from the difficulty; and on a 
second trial his behavior might be much the same as at 
first; but, as in the case of the animal, the useless reac- 
tions tended to be eliminated gradually in a series of 
trials, and the movements that gave success retained, 
so that the correct reaction was more and more quickly 
performed. 

Usually there was more of an intelligent process than 
this. The subject, on his first accidental solution, might 
at least observe where he was when success was reached, 
and confine his future efforts to this place, thus materi- 
ally shortening the time of subsequent trials. He might 
also satisfy himself that such and such promising leads 
led nowhere, and consciously eliminate them. He 
might see into the mechanism to a greater or less degree. 
In some cases, indeed, he might gain a fairly complete 
insight into its working, and so reach an intelligent 
conception of the problem and of the method of solution. 
The more he 'saw into' the thing, the more he was able 



FACTOR OF ORIGINALITY 141 

to utilize his experience In subsequently dealing with 
another puzzle having in part the same principle. The 
more blind and empirical his procedure, the more likely 
he was to meet later with unexpected difficulties, and 
to have to begin over again after mastery had ap- 
parently been gained. 

Occasionally a subject showed less tendency to motor 
activity, and was inclined to study the puzzle out by 
examining it, and to apply known principles derived 
from past experience. Though this mode of attack 
possessed advantages, it was usually not so well adap- 
ted to rapid progress as a procedure in which some ma- 
nipulation was present. The procedure most to be 
recommended in the interests of prompt solution of a 
puzzle of this sort is to manipulate while keeping the 
eyes open for clews and principles. In the great ma- 
jority of cases, definite advances in mastery, as shown 
objectively by sudden increase of speed in solution, 
were introspectively accompanied by fresh insight into 
the principle or workings of the puzzle. 

Almost always, in such situations, the subject 
promptly reached some tentative conception of the 
nature of the problem — some assumption regarding it, 
and based his manipulations on this assumption. He 
assumed, for example, on the strength of the way the 
puzzle first looked to him, that it was to be solved in 
about such and such a way, and confined his efforts 
within the limits so drawn, being blind, often, to other 
possibilities which lay outside the scope of his first 
assumption. Amusing instances occurred in which, the 
assumption being a mistaken one, very obvious ways 
out of the difficulty were overlooked, as if the subject 



142 DYNAMIC PSYCHOLOGY 

were entirely blind to them. Under these circum- 
stances, a suggestion by the experimenter that the 
subject formulate his underlying assumptions and then 
ask himself what other assumptions might possibly be 
made, sometimes led to the disappearance of this blind- 
ness, and so to a speedy solution after long and fruitless 
efforts. In some cases, however, the subject was un- 
accountably stubborn in his assumptions, and prac- 
tically refused to alter them even though they had led 
to nothing but failure. This stubbornness and lack of 
flexibility is evidently the opposite of originality. It 
amounted to a sticking in the ruts, a following of the 
habit first established, a shutting up of the m.ind against 
any further insight. Though such stubbornness seems 
at first unaccountable, it noticeably gave the subject 
some comfort in spite of the resulting failure. This was 
undoubtedly the comfort of the familiar, the ease and 
smoothness of habit. Just as old people often dislike 
new ways, even when they recognize their superiority 
to the old ways, because the old ways are easy and com- 
fortable, and any adventure outside of them brings an 
uncomfortable sense of insecurity, so it was here, and 
to some degree with all persons, though much more with 
some than with others. As indicated by these experi- 
ments, then, one condition of original behavior lies in a 
readiness to give up existing conceptions and venture 
out into the untried sea of further possibilities. 

Though it certainly is not possible to give rules that 
shall make one who follows them original, yet these 
experiments suggested certain guiding principles that 
would probably increase the effectiveness of the factor 
of originality. One of these is that just indicated — to 



FACTOR OF ORIGINALITY 143 

endeavor to keep an open mind to possibilities that have 
not yet suggested themselves. This can sometimes be 
accomplished by first noting precisely what the assump- 
tions are on which one is proceeding, and then asking 
whether other possibilities do not exist. Originality re- 
quires that the reaction to a problem should not be 
allowed to harden prematurely into habit. 

Another teaching, a counterfoil to the preceding, is 
to test your assumptions one by one, and endeavor to 
exclude some of them definitely before passing on, and 
thus limit the field of operations. If some individuals 
fail for lack of flexibility, others are too flexible, are very 
open to clews and suggestions, but make little progress 
because none of the clews is persistently followed up. 
In other words, persistence may be in excess and amount 
to stubbornness, or in deficiency and amount to lack of 
control. 

The value of generalization and precise formulation 
of what has been discovered also came out in these 
experiments, especially when transition was made from 
one puzzle to another. A generalized and formulated 
observation was applicable beyond the field where it 
was originally made, while others were likely to be lim- 
ited to that field. 

In general, then, the process gone through in original 
activity has the form of varied reaction and trial and 
error, with some degree of control and generalization. 
The process may be restated thus : the individual is con- 
fronted by a situation to which he attempts to react but 
meets with obstruction. This stimulates him to explo- 
ration and varied attempts at escape. The situation, 
being complex, offers many points of attack, many fea- 



144 DYNAMIC PSYCHOLOGY 

tures which, being observed, suggest or evoke reactions 
in accordance with past experience. The difficulty is, to 
find the right feature to react to, or, in other words, so 
to perceive the situation as to be able to bring our exist- 
ing equipment into successful use. The individual 
whose past experience has best equipped him for reac- 
tion to this type of situation, who has most flexibility 
combined with due persistence and control, and who is 
natively most responsive to this type of situation, dis- 
plays the most originality in dealing with it. 

Another experiment, of a somewhat different sort, 
may also be reviewed for evidence on the matter of 
originality. In learning to typewrite. Book found, as 
has already been said in speaking of the process of learn- 
ing, that after the learner had mastered the reactions to 
the separate letters, there came a time when he began to 
make synthetic reactions to often-recurring words or 
groups of letters. He hit upon this new and more effi- 
cient mode of reaction not deliberately, but without 
forethought, and, as it were, accidentally, when he was 
feeling fresh and in good physical condition, and was 
hopefully doing his utmost to improve his speed. He 
then found himself writing a word as a unit, by a con- 
catenated series of movements called out as a whole, 
instead of by his previous method of spelling the word 
out letter by letter. The essential act seems here to be a 
widening of the mental grasp to take in several letters 
at a time, with their sequence and the relations of one 
to the other. For example, the first letter is written 
with the left hand, the second with the, right, and the 
third with the left again. In the letter-reaction stage, 
the subject has taken no note of this alternation of the 



FACTOR OF ORIGINALITY 145 

two hands, but now, widening his span of apprehension, 
he takes in the three letters at once, with the alternation 
of 'the two hands as an integral part of the coordinated 
act. Very often, indeed, originality consists in perceiv- 
ing or responding to the relations of things previously 
perceived without regard to their relations. 

When we turn from these motor performances to 
ideational thinking and reasoning, we should perhaps 
expect to find the form of action entirely different. 
Trial and error, especially, is usually conceived as a 
low grade of reaction, appropriate to animals, but con- 
trasted with the rational thought of man. Reasoning, 
as pictured in the syllogism, with its major and minor 
premises and resulting conclusion, appears truly as a 
straight ahead movement, very different from the tenta- 
tive exploration of trial and error. But it is now recog-- 
nized that the formal syllogism is by no means a psy- 
chological picture. It is a check which can be applied 
to a completed act of reasoning, to detect possible errors. 
If the reasoning is coherent, it should be expressible in 
syllogistic form, or some other definite form. But the 
process of reasoning, as it actually goes on, does not 
have the well-ordered form of the syllogism. It does not 
start with the major premise, but with a problem. The 
premises are not given, but must be found; and the 
finding of them is a tentative, trial and error process, 
though carried on, it may be, in the ideational rather 
than in the motor sphere. 

This can easily be demonstrated by the solution of 
what are called 'originals' in the teaching of geometry. 
It is true that the regular propositions in the geometry 
books are set down in syllogistic form, with an orderly 



146 DYNAMIC PSYCHOLOGY 

procedure from the known to the unknown. But it is 
safe to say that these same propositions did not origi- 
nate in this well-ordered form ; and this can be demon- 
strated, or at least made highly probable, by observing 
how an 'original' is solved. One cannot go straight for- 
ward in an orderly manner — if one could, not originality 
but habit would be in play. One starts with the prob- 
lem, and explores about, like a rat in a maze or a cat in 
a cage, trying this and that as one notices one after 
another feature of the problem, till finally a good clew 
is got, the essential elements of the problem are dis- 
covered and the appropriate premises recalled — after 
which trial and error process, indeed, one can remodel 
the reasoning into the syllogistic form and thus check 
up its correctness. Reason thus proceeds from the 
unknown to the known. It would be easy, no doubt, to 
start with the known, but the question would then be, 
whither to proceed. We need a goal. The goal is the 
unknown, which comes first in reasoning, as a goal, to 
be sure. Reasoning is first of all a tendency towards the 
unknown, and next a finding of something known from 
which to proceed. The unknown, strange, baffling situa- 
tion must somehow be made to yield something that is 
known, by means of which the unknown can be mastered. 
The qualifications for a good thinker are, first, that 
he should be equipped by past experience for dealing 
with the kind of material now presented ; that he should, 
in other words, be in possession of knowledge applicable 
to the problem in hand. Second, that he should have 
a keenness in observing the features of the situation or 
problem presented to him, and a degree of 'sagacity'^ 

^ See the Chapter on 'Reasoning' in James's Principles of Psychology. 



FACTOR OF ORIGINALITY 147 

in selecting or hitting upon features that are of signifi- 
cance; this quaHty distinguishes the effective thinker 
from one who, perhaps with great learning, labors long 
and ineffectively over inessentials. Third, he should 
have a quality of mind which we may call flexibility, an 
ability to get out of the rut and see what did not at first 
impress him. Fourth, he needs the power of control, so 
that his thinking, instead of wandering hither and yon 
as interesting suggestions strike him, shall remain fixed 
on the problem in hand in spite of the flexibility of his 
attention. Of these qualifications, that which is most 
amenable to improvement through effort and training 
is evidently the first, while that which is most ex- 
clusively a matter of native gifts is probably the factor 
of sagacity. To find a clue is some merit ; to be able to 
drop one clue and find others is still better; but to have 
the 'detective instinct' that fixes on the right clue is the 
mark, in any given field, of the man who has a real gift 
for original thinking in that field. 

The conditions under which reasoning arises — ob- 
struction to a tendency which has been aroused to activ- 
ity — give rise also to another important phenomenon. 
The obstruction arouses an access of energy in the ten- 
dency obstructed. Access of energy on obstruction 
seems a fundamental characteristic of instinctive, as 
indeed, of any action. Restraint of an animal that is 
starting to move makes him strain against the restraint. 
Holding your hand over a child's mouth when he is 
crying makes him bawl the louder. The horse responds 
to the rise in the road, or to the increase in his load by 
pulling the harder — up to a certain limit, of course. 



148 DYNAMIC PSYCHOLOGY 

This tendency can be experimentally demonstrated in 
adults. The muscular force of a movement is roughly 
proportioned to the resistance encountered, and if the 
resistance is suddenly increased, there is a reflex increase 
of muscular energy to overcome the resistance. And the 
same thing can be observed in acts that are not dis- 
tinctly muscular. 1 The subject rouses himself to over- 
come a distraction or a difficulty in the task before him, 
and often does better work under difficulties than when 
everything is 'plain sailing'. Even where the resistance 
encountered is not of a directly physical nature, and 
where muscular force has nothing to do with overcom- 
ing it, an almost universal result of encountering resis- 
tance is an increase in motor tension and action. Dis- 
traction while one is typewriting causes one to pound 
the keys harder and speak the words aloud; and the 
same is true when the beginner is encountering the 
difficulties incident to his unfamiliarity with the work. 
This overflow of energy into motor channels reveals the 
access of energy that has occurred in the brain as the 
result of the difficulties encountered. 

There may also appear signs of displeasure and espe- 
cially of anger. The subject's face becomes flushed, his 
voice takes on a harsh quality ; he may give vent to in- 
terjections expressive of vexation. If his introspections 
are taken, he testifies to the presence of displeasure and 
vexation, and of determination to overcome the obstacle 
and reach the desired end. He is likely to express him- 
self by saying, ''In spite of the difficulties, I can and will 
do this thing. "2 The state of mind is one of zeal and 

^Morgan, The Overcoming of Distraction and Other Resistances, 191 6. 
2 See Ach, Uber dasWillensakt und das Temperament, 19 10. 



FACTOR OF ORIGINALITY 149 

even of fierceness; and it is not at all improbable that 
the internal bodily condition is similar to that which 
Cannon has shown to exist in rage.^ Anger, zeal, deter- 
mination, willing are closely allied and probably iden- 
tical in part. Certainly they are aroused by the same 
stimulus, namely, by obstruction encountered in the 
pursuit of some end. 

It is interesting that reasoning, willing, and anger are 
all aroused by the same sort of conditions. Willing and 
anger are, indeed, somewhat similar states, though will 
may certainly be strong and at the same time com- 
paratively calm. Anger and reasoning are not likely 
to be aroused together, but some degree of voluntary 
effort is aroused along with reasoning. The tendency of 
anger, or of will for that matter, is to overcome the 
obstacle by a frontal attack, whereas the tendency of 
reason is to explore about for some other way to the 
desired goal. The strong will, that bends not to any 
opposition, appears the nobler trait, and Achilles a 
greater hero than the wily Ulysses ; though it is perhaps 
Ulysses that more often takes the city. No complete 
antagonism, however, exists between the two; for a 
certain amount of voluntary energy is needed to carry 
the reasoning process forward. 

Reasoning is the development of a new mechanism; 
willing the development of fresh motive power. The 
most important question regarding willing is : Whence 
comes this fresh motive power? How can obstruction 
to a tendency increase its drive? Apparently there 
are several ways in which the extra drive can origi- 
nate. In the simplest cases, no new tendency is 

1 cf. pp. 52-55 above. 



150 DYNAMIC PSYCHOLOGY 

aroused, but the tendency that is already somewhat 
active is more completely aroused by the obstruction. 
The avoiding or self -protective instinct, for example, is 
aroused by the presence of danger, but it may be only 
moderately aroused if escape is unimpeded ; but let an 
obstacle obtrude itself, and the fear impulse is more 
thoroughly awakened and gives greater energy to the 
escape movements. 

Slightly more complex is the case where the primary 
tendency, after starting a series of acts in motion, has 
itself gone partially to sleep, because the interest of 
these acts — preparatory reactions — is sufficient to carry 
them forward once they are started. They supply their 
own drive. But now let an obstruction occur, and the 
primary tendency is again awakened and supplements 
the drive inherent in the act that is momentarily being 
executed. I start for the train, it may be, in plenty of 
time; and, while this primary motive of catching the 
train is sufficiently awake to keep me to my course, I am 
carried forward from moment to mioment by habit or 
by the interest of my walk and of the things I see. But 
an obstruction appears, and the primary tendency 
awakes to full activity as I remember that I must catch 
that train. 

Still more complex cases occur, in which some motive, 
not concerned in the course of the activity up to the 
moment of obstruction, is then aroused and adds its 
force to the force of the motive already in action. I 
may have started for the train without any further mo- 
tive than that it is my routine to take it. But when an 
obstruction threatens to prevent my catching it, I may 
remember that on this particular day I have an im- 



FACTOR OF ORIGINALITY 151 

portant engagement which will be missed if I fail to 
catch this train; and this additional motive lends in- 
creased energy to my efforts. Or, my self-esteem may 
be touched, since it would be humiliating to miss the 
train. Or again, my ideal of myself as one who can be 
depended upon to meet his engagements may awake; 
and some of the deepest forces in my personality may 
thus be drawn into an action that was at first quite 
superficial in its motivation. 

The obstructions thus far spoken of have been exter- 
nal to the individual; but this is not true of all, and in 
fact some of the most serious will problems arise from 
inner obstruction, from the conflict of two tendencies. 
If the tendencies are about equally balanced, the con- 
flict is vexatious while it lasts, and it is very apt to end 
in an unsatisfactory way, one tendency getting the 
advantage, while the other, not entirely quieted down, 
remains to upset the equilibrium. The conflict is some- 
times resolved by a rational process effecting a coordina- 
tion between the opposing tendencies and making pos- 
sible the satisfaction of both in some inclusive activity. 
Sometimes, again, one tendency is subordinated to the 
other, or it may be put off and quieted by the promise 
that its turn will come later. One who has difficulty in 
getting up in the morning may manage it by promising 
himself that he will go back to bed after breakfast — 
probably forgetting the promise when once thoroughly 
awake. But sometimes a tendency refuses to be put oft' 
or subordinated or coordinated; it must either prevail 
or be suppressed. Even such conflicts are sometimes 
resolved, and one of two irreconcilable tendencies made 
to yield to the other. This probably can only be ac- 



152 DYW^IIC PSYCHOLOGY 

complished by the coming into action of some drive 
other than the two at first in conflict and throwing its 
force on one side or the other. Thus far-reaching plans 
of life or personal ideals may be drawTi into the conflict 
and administer a check to an injudicious or unworth}^ 
tendency which is momentarily insistent. 

Freedom of the will is a topic now generally relegated 
to philosophy. In the sense of being uncaused and 
unconditioned, freedom is certainly an uncongenial con- 
cept to dynamic psycholog>^ whose aim it is to seek for 
causes. We may, perhaps, speak of the will as free in 
somewhat the same sense as we call reasoning original. 
Obstruction is overcome in the one case as in the other. 
Internal sources of energy are tapped, and in overcom- 
ing external obstructions the indi\*idual re^*eals his 
independence, as in resolving inner conflict he may re- 
veal the independence of his higher or more inclusive 
self as against tendencies less closely integrated with 
the self. As reasoning makes a new use of inner re- 
sources, so wilhng gets hold in a new way of the inner 
dri^'ing forces of the individual. x\s the originality of 
reasoning is limited in that it cannot pass the bounds of 
one's inner capacities nor the bounds of the real world, 
so the freedom of the will, it would seem, is limited to the 
forces inherent in the individual's nature, as its effec- 
tiveness is limited by the general forces of nature of 
which the individual is a part. 



# 



VII 

DRIVE AND MECHANISM IN ABNORMAL 

BEHAVIOR 

In an earlier lecture, when the course of the modem 
movement in psychology was being traced, interest in 
abnormal mental conditions was mentioned as one of 
the streams that have contributed in an important way 
to the general movement. The modem tendency has 
been to get away from the speculative consideration of 
mental affairs, and to follow the lead of the other 
sciences in basing conclusions upon observed and re- 
corded facts. Abnormal mental conditions offer a great 
mass of facts for observation, and the need of taking 
account of these facts, in any adequate treatment of 
mental life, has been one of the forces driving psychol- 
ogy to the scientific attitude. When this mass of facts 
first began to be presented to the consideration of 
psychologists, they were inclined to reject it as some- 
thing lying outside their proper sphere. Psychology, 
they asserted, was concerned with the normal workings 
of the mind, and had best keep itself clear of the ab- 
normal, lest it become confused by what are certainly 
very puzzling phenomena, and, in trying to embrace 
the abnormal in its view, fail to get a clear vision of 
either normal or abnormal. But this attitude of opposi- 
tion could not be maintained in the face of the enormous 
accumulation of data resulting from the ever-increasing 
study of abnormal mentality by the physician. 



154 DYNAMIC PSYCHOLOGY 

The primary interest in mental disorders was the 
practical desire to ameliorate the condition of the suf- 
ferer, and the observations in this field were accordingly 
made by that fraction of the medical profession that 
devoted itself to the specialty of nei-vous and mental 
diseases. That was true at the beginning, and is true 
in the main today, though we find a certain number of 
professed psychologists taking a hand in the direct study 
of abnormal mental conditions. In the main, pathologi- 
cal psychology has developed rather independently of 
general psychology, and has made only a perfunctory 
use of it. The psychiatrists have adopted some of its 
phraseology, and endeavored to classify abnormal men- 
tal conditions under psychological headings, but they 
have, as a whole, remained surprisingly out of touch 
with what was being accomplished by the students of 
normal psychology. Perhaps it would be fairer to say 
that they found little tcrtheir purpose in the text books 
of normal psychology, and so, after making it a bow of 
recognition, went about their own business in their own 
way. On their side, the professed psychologists have 
usually felt themselves rather out of touch with psycho- 
pathology. They have recognized the great mass of 
facts accumulated on the subject of abnormal mentality, 
but have not themselves had a direct enough knowledge 
of those facts to warrant their attempting to system- 
atize them, while they have regarded with some scepti- 
cism the generalizations and theories of physicians re- 
garding the psychology of abnormal conditions. It is 
time, without doubt, that these two lines of psychologi- 
cal investigation came mor.e completely into touch with 
each other. The difficulty is for either party to find 



ABNORMAL BEHAVIOR 155 

the time to make a first-hand acquaintance with the 
materials in the possession of the other — for the psychol- 
ogist to find time to make a serious study of insane and 
neurotic individuals, and for the psychiatrist to find 
time to work in the psychological laboratory. Mean- 
while, the psychologist cannot remain indifferent to the 
facts presented by the psychopathologist. There is 
much there that aids in understanding normal mental 
life. Especially, there is much there bearing on the 
important question of the drives or motive forces opera- 
tive in all mental life, normal or abnormal. Thus far, 
experimental psychology has done much more with 
mechanisms than with drives, while the most significant 
findings of psychopathology have been concerned with 
drives rather than mechanisms. The two thus serve as 
complements of each other. 

Four sorts of mental abnormality offer themselves 
for study. The simplest case is that of mental defect, 
and the most complex is probably that of insanity. 
There are, besides, the conditions that go by the name 
of neuroses, and those that go by the name of the 
'psychopathology of every-day life', i. e., minor abnor- 
malities occurring in normal individuals. 

In mental defect, as the name implies, the abnormal- 
ity consists almost or quite exclusively in a lack. The 
lack is one of intelligence, or at least shows itself in that 
way. According to the degree of deficiency of intelli- 
gence, the individual is classed as an idiot, an imbecile, or 
a moron, the last class consisting of those whose intelli- 
gence js not far below the level that might be called 
low normal. The moron or feeble-minded class shades 
off imperceptibly into the more stupid of the great class 



156 DYNAMIC PSYCHOLOGY 

of normal individuals, even as the little-gifted group of 
normal persons merges into the larger group of average 
intelligence and this in turn into the smaller group of 
superior gifts. The whole grouping is, indeed, artifi- 
cial, with no sharp line anywhere. The mentally de- 
ficient individual differs only in a quantitative way from 
the normal. But a line has to be drawn for practical 
purposes, and the attempt is to draw it at such a point 
as to divide those who can make their own way in life 
from those who, left to themselves, cannot get along in 
the social environment, and accordingly need supervi- 
sion in their own interest as well as in the interests of 
society as a whole. Society is concerned because mental 
deficiency is a strong factor in producing pauperism, 
crime and prostitution, industrial accidents, the spread 
of disease, and other forms of human misery, because 
mental deficiency is largely the result of heredity, and 
because the mentally deficient are prone to breed abun- 
dantly, and thus, at a time when the general birth rate 
tends to fall, to increase, generation after generation, 
the proportion of feeble-minded in the population and 
thus the amount of crime and misery. For these rea- 
sons, it is obviously incumbent upon society to provide 
public institutions or supervision for all the mentally 
deficient, with the object both of making their lives as 
happy as possible and of preventing them from damag- 
ing society by their own incompetency and by breeding 
and multiplying. 

The psychology of mental defect seems to be fairly 
simple, though undoubtedly much remains to be dis- 
covered regarding it. As regards drives and mech- 
anisms, the feeble-minded person is deficient in both. 



ABNORMAL BEHAVIOR 157 

It will be remembered that we have insisted all along 
that drives and mechanisms were not fundamentally 
different, but that a drive was itself a mechanism which, 
once aroused, persisted for a time in activity, and was 
able in turn to arouse other mechanisms. The feeble- 
minded person is deficient in mechanisms because he is 
unable to learn as much as a normal person. His equip- 
ment is therefore scanty and becomes scantier, for his 
age, as he grows up. In matter of equipment, he re- 
mains at the level of the child, or, better, at different 
levels of childhood according to the degree of his defect. 
However strongly he is driven, then, either from with- 
out or by his own motives, he simply cannot accomplish 
much, not having the mechanisms for accomplishing it. 
But he is lacking in motive force also. He is, in fact, 
notably lacking in such matters as a life plan or a social 
or family interest, which are so important as drives in 
the normal man. For lack of such internal drives, he is 
easily led astray by designing persons, and is, in large 
measure, a creature of the moment. 

The other types of mental abnormality cannot be so 
simply conceived. They differ qualitatively rather than 
quantitatively from the normal. They are distortions 
and not mere defects in mentality. Here is a man, for 
example, who believes himself to be Alexander the 
Great, prevented from taking his true station in life 
by a combination of his enemies. No doubt such a 
delusion means weakness somewhere in the mental 
make-up of the subject; but weakness alone will not 
explain why the delusion takes a certain form. There 
is something positive about a delusion that depends on 
the activity of the subject, and not simply on his lack 



158 DYNAMIC PSYCHOLOGY 

of activity. When we attempt to trace the develop- 
ment of such a delusion in the individual's history, we 
very likely discover that he has always been rather a 
peculiar character, self-conceited and suspicious of other 
people, not by any means a 'good mixer'. His inability 
to get along with other people was the first sign of weak- 
ness in his make-up. His social perception was poor; 
he did not understand other people's actions readily 
and correctly. He pleased himself by interpretations of 
their behavior unfavorable to them but favorable to his 
high opinion of himself. They slighted him, as he con- 
ceived, because they were unwilling to recognize his 
superior qualities. He thus built up for himself a false 
conception of the social environment in which he moved, 
and got more and more out of touch with it. From 
isolated suspicions and misinterpretations, he grew into 
an organized system of suspicion and false interpreta- 
tion. The most trivial actions were interpreted as sig- 
nificant of an attitude of hostility towards himself. A 
stranger coughing at an adjoining table in a restaurant 
might elicit the angry demand, ''How dare you cough 
at me? I will not stay here to be insulted." If an ac- 
quaintance offered the least criticism, that was evi- 
dently an unfriendly act ; if he made himself agreeable, 
that was simply to divert suspicion and conceal his 
unfriendliness. This system of suspicions was organ- 
ized about an overweening self-conceit as its core. 
There was a great exaggeration of his own ability and 
importance, though as yet no definite delusion regarding 
his identity. Now let the subject overhear som^eone 
mentioning the name of Alexander the Great. In ac- 
cordance with his system, he tends to believe that the 



ABNORMAL BEHAVIOR 159 

remark has some reference to him; and in accordance 
with his sense of his own importance, he is easily led 
to the conjecture that people are saying that he re- 
sembles Alexander the Great in appearance or ability 
or some other respect. As he ruminates over this sig- 
nificant remark, the idea flashes over him that he is 
Alexander the Great, and this grandiose idea gives him 
such satisfaction and so clarifies the whole mass of his 
suspicions, that he makes it his own, slurring over its 
improbabilities, and dwelling on w^hatever makes it 
seem possible. Now, at last, he understands why he is 
slighted and persecuted. He is this great personage, 
and more or less clearly known to be such by his asso- 
ciates, who, however, are naturally unwilling to exalt 
him so far above themselves, and therefore try to keep 
him down. Recalling the events of his past life in the 
light of this new insight, he finds a thousand incidents 
that point towards the great fact, and organizes the 
whole of his social experience around this delusion of 
his own great personality. He may still not have 
reached the point when he is ready to act upon his 
delusion or give open expression to it, and in rare cases 
he may carry the delusion concealed within him for 
years, but eventually his behavior is so affected by it 
that he is recognized as insane. This is the type of 
insanity called 'paranoia', rather an uncommon type, 
though similar delusions, less completely worked out, 
are frequent in other forms of insanity. 

If we attempt to restate the behavior of the paranoiac 
in terms of dynamic psychology, we see, for one thing, 
that the delusion, once fully formed, becomes part of 
the learned equipment of the subject. He acquired it 



i6o DYNAMIC PSYCHOLOGY 

by a long process of learning. Once formed, it acts as 
a drive, facilitating acts and perceptions that would 
otherwise be possible but not probable, and inhibiting 
others that would otherwise probably occur. The delu- 
sion acts as a permanent bias in interpreting the actions 
of other people. But there must have been some drive 
activating the process by which the delusion was ac- 
quired; this drive was undoubtedly the demand for 
social recognition, which can itself be traced back, in 
part, to the self-asserting or dominating instinct. We 
are tempted to conclude that it was because the demand 
for social recognition was more insistent in this indi- 
vidual than in other men that the delusion was gen- 
ei'ated; but such a conclusion overlooks the element of 
weakness in the paranoiac's make-up. From the begin- 
ning he showed a deficient power of understanding 
others and adapting himself to them; this weakness 
created obstacles to the gratification of his demand for 
social recognition, and it was in trying to overcome 
these obstacles that the suspicions, inordinate conceit, 
and delusions of persecution and of greatness were 
generated. The process of acquiring the delusion was 
in fact none other than our old friend, learning by trial 
and error. Like the cat in the cage, the incipient par- 
anoiac faced a bafBing situation. Demanding what we 
have briefly called social recognition, he was prevented 
by obstacles lying within himself, but not so understood 
by him, from reaching his goal. Varied exploratory 
reactions were the natural result, one of them being 
the interpretation of the indifference of others as dic- 
tated by their jealousy of his own superiority. So in- 
terpreted, the behavior of others became a form of 



ABNORMAL BEHAVIOR l6i 

recognition ; and thus the demand for social recognition 
was in a measure met. It was met still better by the 
delusion of greatness. Scarcely anything could more 
fully gratify self-conceit than the conviction that one 
was a very great person, temporarily prevented from 
taking one's rightful place in the world by a combination 
of ill-wishers, but destined, no doubt, to escape from 
this net of intrigue and to compel recognition. Thus, 
by delusion, the paranoiac escaped from his cage, and 
his escape, though unreal, was so satisfactory to him as 
to terminate the trial and error process, and remain as 
a fixed form of reaction to the social environment. 

What happens in the delusions happens in various 
other types of abnormal behavior. We have to suspect, 
in each case, that there is some drive behind the develop- 
ment of the abnormal reaction. It will be funda- 
mentally a normal drive, one that operates in all men. 
We have to suspect also an obstruction barring the way 
to the goal towards which the drive Is directed, an ob- 
struction internal to the individual and due to weakness 
in his make-up. Thus Involved In a puzzling situation, 
he goes through a trial and error process, and, being 
unable because of his own weakness to find a really 
appropriate solution of the problem, adopts some sub- 
stitute solution that gives an Illusory success, and thus 
satisfies the drive and permits its tension to relax. 

Besides this elaborate trial and error process, there 
are simpler processes leading to abnormal behavior. 
Some such behavior follows the type of the conditioned 
reflex, as was neatly shown in MacKensIe's experiment 
on a hay fever patient.^ A person subject to hay fever 

^ Cited by Morton Prince, Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 1908, 
III, 270. 



i62 DYNAMIC PSYCHOLOGY 

brought on by the chemical influence of roses had a 
typical attack on being suddenly shown some roses 
made of paper. Evidently the sight of roses, from 
being constantly associated with their chemical effect, 
had acquired the power to produce the reaction. There 
are many instances of this general sort. Another 
fairly simple type is the habit neurosis, in which the 
abnormal reaction, having been for some reason made 
several times, has acquired the force of a habit. A 
habit is a drive, as we see from the tension and un- 
easiness that occur when a habitual reaction is called 
for but prevented from realizing itself. To perform 
a habitual action gives satisfaction; or, at least, to 
forego the performance brings dissatisfaction and un- 
easiness. This is seen in attempting to break such a 
habit as smoking. There may be little craving for the 
drug, but there is a craving for the habitual act, and a 
feeling of irritation when it is prevented from occurring. 
Such phenomena occur also in the neuroses. But a 
fully fledged neurosis is more complex than a con- 
ditioned reflex or habit, involving in its development 
a drive, an obstruction due to inherent weakness, and 
trial and error leading to some substitute for real 
mastery of the situation. 

The substitute reaction is made possible by first sub- 
stituting an unreal for the actual situation. Pierre 
Janet, one of the greatest of psychopathologists, has 
strongly insisted, as others have done after him, on this 
tendency of neurotics to neglect the real world about 
them — especially the world of people and daily duties — 
and to substitute for it a world 'molded to their heart's 
desire*, an easier and simpler world. Not having the 



ABNORMAL BEHAVIOR 163 

force to deal with their real work, or with the real 
people about them, they remodel things by false inter- 
pretations, or leave real things altogether aside to im- 
merse themselves in imaginary situations, from which 
the obstruction of their own weakness is left out, so 
that their desires can reach their goal. It is easy to be 
the hero in a day dream of your own construction, but 
to resort to this source of satisfaction in place of real 
deeds in the real world is a mark of weakness. This 
substitutive activity, carried to an extreme, is definitely 
abnormal and neurotic. 

The neurotic individual is not counted as insane, be- 
cause he is not definitely deluded or disoriented or in- 
accessible to rational dealings. Yet he may be in- 
capacitated for work or normal happy living and social 
relations. He lives to too great an extent in an unreal 
world of his own construction. He has met his life 
problems by solutions that satisfy his tendencies in a 
measure, but still are unsatisfactory because they have 
left out of account essential factors in the real 
situation. 

In the manifold variety of neuroses, two well-defined 
forms stand out, and are often regarded as types, the 
others being regarded as approximations to these, 
though this is quite possibly an erroneous way of con- 
ceiving the matter, since we generally find, in studying 
individual differences and peculiarities, that the well- 
defined 'types' are really extreme variations from the 
real type, which is the less peculiar and more average 
individual. The tw^o 'types' are what are called hysiieria 
and psychasthenia. They have in common a deficiency 
of mental energy, or, we might say, a deficiency of drive 



i64 DYNAMIC PSYCHOLOGY 

or motive force. This deficiency is often called 'abulia* 
or lack of will. 

The one type of neurotic individual, the hysteric, 
adjusts himself to his lack of motive force by narrowing 
the field of his activity, so remaining intense in a nar- 
row field, dissociated or split off from the rest of his 
life, to which he becomes indifferent. Some system of 
thoughts, memories, emotions, and tendencies grips him 
at times with such hallucinatory vividness as to make 
him oblivious to his surroundings, while he lives in this 
system and acts it out, it may be, with surprising 
dramatic power. When he comes out of this trance or 
fit, he forgets all about it and its system of ideas, etc. 
The narrowness of his 'field of consciousness' renders 
him extremely suggestible, and liable to peculiar paraly- 
ses and losses of sensation. 

The psychasthenic, on the contrary, is diffuse rather 
than narrow. He tries to keep hold of everything, but 
has not force enough to make anything go properly. 
He doubts, hesitates, repeats, ruminates, feels unreal 
and unsure of himself. On the basis of this abulia and 
insecurity there develop more or less well-defined irra- 
tional fears, ideas, and ways of acting, which are to be 
interpreted either as substitutes for significant acts 
which he has not the force to undertake, or as his ways 
of conceiving the difficulty in which he finds himself. 
It is more satisfactory to deal with a definite trouble 
than with an undefined feeling of strangeness and in- 
security, and thus the queer fears and fixed ideas of these 
subjects afford them some satisfaction, and constitute 
a sort of way out of their difficulties. The tendency to 
escape from vague uncertainty into some sort of definite 



ABNORMAL BEHAVIOR 165 

conception of things is a real driving force in many situ- 
ations in life. Substitute reactions can perhaps be 
understood as follows: the tendency towards a certain 
activity — perhaps the daily work — is aroused to some 
degree, but not sufficiently to produce actual perform- 
ance, and the resulting state of tension is relieved by 
engaging in some other, easier activity, like pacing 
restlessly back and forth, repeatedly washing the hands 
instead of cleaning the house, worrying about things 
instead of doing them, vowing to punish oneself if one 
does not do one's task, and then ruminating over the 
question whether it is not a sin to make such vows. 
Following up this general line of interpretation, Janet 
has given a very interesting account of the numerous 
eccentricities of the psychasthenic's behavior. The 
substitute reaction is also, as already suggested, a 
Vay out', a solution of a problem by trial and error 
and without taking account of all the essential facts. 

Milder symptoms of the same general sort occur in 
persons who would be classed as normal rather than 
neurotic. The substitute reaction is very common when 
a difficult task has to be performed, or an unpalatable 
truth to be digested. One who has a disagreeable duty 
to perform is apt to find good reasons for delay. It is 
not uncommon, for example, that writers, except under 
strong stimulus or when they have become well 'warmed 
up to it', find writing an irksome task. Such a one, sit- 
ting down to his desk or typewriter, will have all sorts 
of other things occur to him that he ought to attend to 
first. Or, he may run over in his mind what he means 
to write, and get two or three pages planned out almost 
word for word ; but as soon as he makes a move to write, 



i66 DYNAMIC PSYCHOLOGY 

the seriousness of actually committing it to paper gives 
him a check and he proceeds to think it over again, and 
soon finds himself once more two or three pages ahead. 
It seems to be much easier for him to think out what 
he is going to write after a while than to 'get right down' 
to writing. Another form of substitute reaction often 
appears in solving such a problem as that of 'making 
both ends meet'. Instead of sticking to the hard facts, 
one is apt to imagine something 'turning up' and re- 
lieving the whole difficulty, and this imaginary situation 
substituted for the real one may give quite a glow of 
satisfaction. 

Traits that are scarcely other than abnormal often 
occur in the relations of one normal person with 
another. The cherishing of imaginary slights and griev- 
ances is a curious example. It certainly seems perverse 
to derive satisfaction from imagining oneself ill-treated ; 
yet this is a common form of satisfaction. The subject 
pictures himself as the suffering hero in a way that re- 
minds us of the delusions of persecution ; and probably 
the explanation is much the same. There is an element 
of weakness lurking here, a doubt as to one's own com- 
petency as a friend or lover; and there is a sort of sub- 
stitute reaction, in that refuge is sought in imagined 
grievances instead of frankly and directly doing some 
friendly or loverlike act. 

Freud, one of the most influential psychopathologists 
of the day, has fixed his attention on quite another type 
of abnormality occurring in normal persons. This type 
is represented by the slip of the tongue, the lapse of 
memory, or the 'symptomatic act', which, done 'unin- 
tentionally', betrays some hidden or even unconscious 



ABNORMAL BEHAVIOR 167 

motive. Freud's reason for classing as abnormal so 
trivial a thing as a slip of the tongue is, first that it is 
a slip, but second, and more important, that he con- 
ceives it to be a disturbance produced by the 'uncon- 
scious', the source, also, according to his way of think- 
ing, of all neurotic behavior. 

His conception of the matter is about as follows. 
Suppress a tendency, forbid it to have its way, and you 
drive it from consciousness without eliminating it 
from your system. It remains as part of your 'uncon- 
scious'; it is partially aroused at times by appropriate 
stimuli, but sternly restrained by your dominating 
conscious self — ^not, however, without causing a passing 
disturbance in the activities of the conscious self. Dur- 
ing sleep, the unconscious has a better chance, but even 
then cannot come out into the open, but has to disguise 
its illicit tendencies in the symbolism of dreams. 
Neurotic symptoms are analogous to these disturbances 
but more serious and persistent. By a process of 
'psychoanalysis', in w^hich the subject, under the guid- 
ance of the analyst, relaxes the restraint and allows the 
unconscious tendencies to show themselves openly, they 
are, after much patience, discovered and understood, 
with the happy result that they cease plaguing the sub- 
ject. The suppressed tendencies that are thus brought 
to light are sexual in nature, and date back to early 
childhood, though the fundamental infantile tendencies 
are simply the nucleus of a host of particular sexual im- 
pulses that, having from time to time been repressed, 
people the underworld of the unconscious. What can 
be done with these tendencies, once they are recognized 
by the subject, is to 'sublimate' them, draining off their 



i68 DYNAMIC PSYCHOLOGY 

motive force into other channels, thus allowing them an 
outlet satisfactory to the conscious self and doing away 
with the disturbances that they have previously caused 
in seeking an outlet. 

The main points of the Freudian psychology — in- 
fantilism, the importance of sex impulses, and repression 
into the 'unconscious' — all have an element of truth, 
but are all over-emphasized to the neglect of other fac- 
tors that should be included to give a true picture. As 
to infantilism: while there is no doubt a continuity in 
the individual's experience and tendencies from birth 
to adult life, new motive forces are developed, as we 
have tried to show in another chapter, and the new 
motives have force of their own and not simply force 
derived from the instincts. The sex tendencies of young 
children are much over-emphasized by Freud, being 
read into the behavior of children from the standpoint 
of an adult and not fairly inferred from the behavior 
of the child itself. The 'unconscious' is certainly over- 
drawn by Freud. Slips and lapses, as well as dreams, are 
due in the main to quite other causes than those which 
he gives them. And as to the sexual impulse, while this 
tendency is certainly influential in most individuals, it 
is only one among many tendencies that drive human 
activity. Freud formally admits, indeed, two motive 
forces, sex and the 'instinct of self-preservation', but 
our consideration of instinct revealed many more than 
two tendencies in native equipment, and the reality 
of learned or acquired drives must also be insisted on. 
The adult individual contains a multitude of drives, some 
more important than others, some dating from his native 
equipment, some developed from time to time on the 



ABNORMAL BEHAVIOR 169 

basis of native equipment, but having force of their ov/ii, 
once they are developed, and not needing to draw upon 
the motive force of the native tendencies. The Freudian 
treatment of drives is thus very far from adequate. 

In practice, moreover, it is always the sex tendency 
that is emphasized by Freud and his followers. Wher- 
ever they are able to detect a sex tendency hidden in a 
certain activity, that settles the matter for them; the 
sex tendency is the real driving force and the other ap- 
parent motives are mere disguises of the sex tendency. 
They do not recognize the reality of 'mixed motives'. 
If the sex tendency is present, it is credited with doing 
the whole work. 

There is an atmosphere of the mysterious about all 
this that renders the Freudian psychology at once rather 
fascinating and difficult to deal with on a strictly scien- 
tific basis. It is easy to 'shoo' the whole thing away as 
unscientific, and the line of evidence brought forward 
in support of it deserves this summary treatment, but 
it is not so easy to handle the questions raised by the 
Freudians so judiciously as to extract the truth in their 
teachings and leave aside the dross. In the case of 
*mixed motives', for example, the question is how, in 
the interests of psychological progress, to deal with a 
man who, unearthing a sex impulse in a complex activ- 
ity, straightway insists that this furnishes the whole 
driving force and all other apparent motives are shams. 
Perhaps a suitable way of meeting such a contention is 
to take behavior that is primarily and admittedly driven 
by the sex motive, and see whether other motives do not 
enter even here to modify behavior and give it more 
variety and interest. 



170 DYNAMIC PSYCHOLOGY 

Human sex behavior shows the presence of several 
other motives in addition to the genuine sex impulse. 

Curiosity is, in youth, blended with the sex impulse in 
the first excursions into sex behavior, and in maturity 
as well the element of novelty in a sex stimulus gives it 
additional force. In fact, without novelty this impulse 
is often not arousable. Hence, infidelity and many 
peculiarities of sex behavior. The spirit of independence 
and rebellion against authority is also associated with 
the sex impulse, especially in youth. As in the case of 
curiosity, this accessory drive cannot be derived from 
the sex impulse, since it appears in many other ways 
and not simply with reference to sex. Clandestine love 
is especially attractive to youth, apparently because of 
the admixture of this motive of independence ; love-mak- 
ing carried on under the noses of those who would object 
has an extra spice. Much of the sex behavior of young 
people can only be accounted for by taking into account 
the attractiveness of the novel and the forbidden. If 
the sex impulse alone were in action, the resulting be- 
havior would be much more direct than it is. The essen- 
tial illicitness of sex behavior is a curious pretense, kept 
up even between husband and wife in the interest of 
greater zest, and kept up even by those writers who, in 
theory, most emancipate themselves from the social 
restrictions on sex behavior, but who, in the practice of 
their art, needing to make sex matters interesting, invest 
them as much as possible with an atmosphere of illicit- 
ness and so add piquancy to their stories. 

The protective impulses, as McDougall says, though 
most definitely aroused by the infant and therefore 
identified with the parental instinct, are aroused also 



ABNORMAL BEHAVIOR 1 71 

by other persons than children, when we can adopt a 
protective attitude towards them. It is very clear that 
a man likes to consider himself the protector of the 
woman he loves ; and this is not simply the sex impulse, 
for that may be present with little or no impulse to pro- 
tect, and indeed with a brutal disregard of the welfare 
of its object. But in the higher type of love, the ele- 
ment of protectiveness comes into play. The man likes 
to protect the woman, and she, too, likes to 'mother' 
him. In her case, indeed, the maternal or mothering 
instinct often plays the leading part in the early stages 
of love; while, in a happily mated pair, the protective 
motive, persisting in both parties, furnishes an impor- 
tant part of the drive behind their mutual interest and 
affection. 

The instinctive tendencies of domination and submis- 
sion are also linked with the sex impulse to produce the 
complex motive force which we call 'love'. Theirs is the 
satisfaction of ownership and the satisfaction of being 
owned. Desire, here as elsewhere, is stimulated by un- 
certainty of possession. Undisputed possession leads 
to 'negative adaptation' in respect to the sense of pos- 
session, and to consequent waning of desire, which can 
often be re-awakened by the revival of uncertainty as to 
possession. At the lowest level, the dominating ten- 
dency is satisfied by brute physical compulsion, at a 
higher stage willing submission is essential, and at a still 
higher stage recognition on the part of the loved object 
of one's own personal merits, as is evidenced by the 
sensitiveness of lovers to any fancied slight or criticism. 

That the esthetic impulses are also closely associated 
with the sex impulse, is seen especially in the interest in 



172 DYNAMIC PSYCHOLOGY 

the personal beauty of the loved person. The sex im- 
pulse is undoubtedly in part the drive behind apprecia- 
tion of beauty, as man is more appreciative of feminine 
and woman of manly beauty. Yet the sense for per- 
sonal beauty cannot be wholly derived from the sex 
interest, since there is nothing in the latter to decide 
what is beautiful and what lacking in beauty in most 
parts of the body — the face, especially. Moreover, 
appreciation of beauty extends in some degree to one's 
own sex. 

Art has been asserted by some would-be psychologists 
to be motived entirely by the sex interest; and the in- 
fluence of this motive is indeed clearly present in paint- 
ing and sculpture, as well as in literature. But, as in 
the case of personal beauty, the sex impulse does not 
seem capable of deciding what is beautiful, and, fur- 
ther, not all subjects of art can be related to the sex 
impulse — landscapes, for example. 

Music, likewise, has been attributed to the sex mo- 
tive, and its early association with dancing has been 
held to be a sufficient ground for this interpretation. 
But not all dancing, especially of primitive peoples, is 
related to sex, some of it being related to war or to other 
excitements — ^witness the child's dancing for excite- 
ment. Moreover, the sex motive can go but a very little 
way in explaining musical preferences and the develop- 
ment of music from its crude beginnings to the condition 
of a highly elaborated art. The truth is, here as in the 
other cases, that the esthetic impulse is not derived from 
the sex impulse, but exists independently and has be- 
come secondarily associated with it in certain cases; 
and the association is not entirely a spreading of the 



ABNORMAL BEHAVIOR 173 

sex drive into the esthetic sphere, but just as truly a 
spreading of the esthetic motive into the sphere of sex 
interests. Art has taken the sex motive into its service, 
but sex has equally taken the art motive into its service. 
When a man falls in love with a beautiful maiden, he is 
actuated not simply by the sex impulse, but also by in- 
terest in personal beauty. At its lowest stage, desire is 
unconcerned with any personal traits, even physical 
excellence being unnecessary, provided only the element 
of sex is present, but at a higher stage the esthetic im- 
pulse must also be satisfied, and excellence of disposi- 
tion, and refinement of mind, besides physical beauty, 
may be demanded. 

Why do young people like to dance? What motive 
drives them to abandon ease and comfort, and engage 
in so strenuous an activity? Sex, without doubt, fur- 
nishes a large share of the motive force, but if it w^ere 
the sole motive, why should they trouble themselves to 
master definite steps, and keep time with the rhythm of 
the band, and why should there be any band, and, if 
possible, a good band? Surely part of the motive force 
is the love for rhythm and melody and harmony, while 
part is the love for well-ordered motor activity. 
Dancing is play, and part of its driving force is the same 
as that which makes children run and jump. The sex 
motive, taken by itself, is distinctly not a play motive, 
and when it is strongly aroused and unrestrained, it 
casts aside the elements of play that are associated with 
it in its milder manifestations. Dancing, like many 
other social amusements, draws the sex motive into its 
service to give added spice to play, but without other 
motives these amusements simply would not exist. 



174 DYNAMIC PSYCHOLOGY 

Enough has been said of sex behavior to show that 
the forms taken by it in human kind are the resultant 
of a pluraHty of motives, among which the sex motive is 
often the most serious, while the others are needed to 
give variety and interest. If this is true of behavior that 
is obviously sexual, it can scarcely be less true in be- 
havior that seems to be fundamentally driven by quite 
other motives. Even though the sex motive may enter, 
in some obscure way, into many of these activities, it 
is futile to assert, as the Freudians seem to do, that the 
other motives are mere shams, and that sex furnishes the 
whole driving force wherever it is present at all. It is a 
mistake to overlook the importance of mixed motives in 
the complex forms of human activity. 

Freud's conceptions of suppression and sublimation 
would be of capital importance in a dynamic psychol- 
ogy, if they could be accepted at their face value. The 
conception of suppression aims to show what becomes 
of motives that are not allowed to have their way. They 
become unconscious, according to Freud, but still have 
their force and disturb the orderly operation of other 
forces. Suppression somewhat of this character is un- 
doubtedly a fact, not only in relation to sex impulses but 
with reference to curiosity, anger, and other motives. 
Suppressed anger will sometimes 'smoulder in the 
bosom', disturbing other activities and eventually 
breaking out in deeds. But this is not the only way in 
which rejected motives behave. In considering the 
'factor of selection', we saw the great frequency with 
which it came into play, and the universality of inhibi- 
tion of one tendency as part of the process of choosing 
the alternative. Selection and inhibition occur at prac- 



ABNORMAL BEHAVIOR 175 

tically every moment of the day. Of the Impulses that 
are inhibited, most simply die a natural death, while 
some are depressed rather than suppressed, and remain 
behind, not unconscious, indeed, but also not strong, so 
that they have little effect on the further course of 
events. This is the rule, and suppression, in the 
Freudian sense, the exception. 

Freud's 'sublimation' is an attractive concept. It is 
'nice' to believe that crude motives, that cannot be 
allowed their natural outlet, can be drained off into 
other activities, so that a libidinous infatuation, sluiced 
out of its natural channel, can be made to drive the 
wheels of an artistic or humanitarian hobby. But there 
is no clear evidence that this can be accomplished. 
What does happen sometimes Is that. In the effort to 
escape from, and distract oneself from, a strong but 
unwelcome impulse, one turns to some other activity 
capable of enlisting Interest; and, since the unwelcome 
impulse is not easily resisted, one has to become as ab- 
sorbed as possible In this other activity. Under such 
conditions, interest in this other activity may grow Into 
a strong motive force and effectually supplant the un- 
welcome impulse. But this Is distinctly not making the 
unwelcome impulse do work foreign to Its own tendency. 
This Impulse is not drawn Into service, but Is resisted. 
If there were no other and contrary motive force, the 
impulse In question would have Its own way. We did 
see that the tendency towards a 'consummatory reac- 
tion' acted as the drive to other mechanisms, but these 
were mechanisms that subserved the main tendency, 
whereas 'sublimation' would mean that the tendency 
toward a certain consummation could be made to drive 



176 DYNAMIC PSYCHOLOGY 

mechanisms irrelevant or even contrary to itself. There 
seems to be really no evidence for this, and it probably 
is to be regarded as a distinctly wrpng reading of the 
facts of motivation. 

Though it is well for the d^Tiamic psychologist to 
scrutinize closely the concepts brought forward by 
those who are closely in touch with the intricate and 
baffling phenomena of the insanities and neuroses, and 
though he cannot admit the claim sometimes made that 
only the students of these phenomena are in a position 
to contribute anything to the psychology of human 
motives, still he should have no hesitation in admitting 
the great interest and stimulating value of the ideas 
coming from this source, and he should fully recognize 
the necessity he is under of contributing to a psychology 
that shall hold good of the abnormal as well as the nor- 
mal play of motive forces. 



VIII 

DRIVE AND MECHANISM IN SOCIAL 
BEHAVIOR 

Looked at from a commonsense point of view, there is 
no part of human behavior that is more interesting and 
significant than the behavior of larger or smaller groups 
of men. From the scientific point of view, the concep- 
tion of social behavior, and especially that of social con- 
sciousness, are somewhat puzzling, since the question 
immediately obtrudes itself, what consciousness, or 
what behavior, there is in a group of men that is not 
the consciousness or behavior of the individual members 
of the group. Mystical conceptions of the social mind 
can find no favor with the psychologists of today, who 
belong almost wholly to the hard-headed variety. We 
may as well admit, first as last, that there is no over- 
consciousness appertaining to the group, and that there 
is no activity of the group that does not resolve itself 
into the activities of its members. Why then, it will be 
asked, should we speak at all of social behavior, and set-' 
apart a section of our psychology as the chapter on 
social psychology? 

The puzzle may be resolved by considering analogous 
cases in which no question of mind or consciousness is 
present to complicate the matter. Suppose we have 
three dots on the blackboard, arranged in a particular 
form, triangular, let us say. Then it is perfectly true to 
say that the dots are all there is there, except indeed the 



178 DYNAMIC PSYCHOLOGY 

homogeneous spatial medium. Where then is the trian- 
gular form, since it certainly does not reside in any one 
of the dots taken alone, nor in the three, if each is re- 
garded as isolated from the others? The triangular 
form resides in the arrangement and mutual relations 
of the dots. These are purely static relations, but if we 
consider the actions of things, we find similar cases of 
dynamic relations and patterns. A ball thrown into 
the air is acted upon by the initial impulse given it, per- 
sisting as inertia of movement and tending to carry it 
onward ever in the same straight line, and by the con- 
stant pull of gravity downward, as well as by the resis- 
tance of the air. It moves, accordingly, in a curved path. 
Now the curved path does not represent the working of 
any force peculiar to itself ; there is simply the combina- 
tion of the three elementary forces mentioned ; but in a 
real sense there is something in the total action besides 
the isolated action of three forces, namely, their joint 
action. 

In the same way, when two or more human indi- 
viduals are together, their mutual relationships and 
their arrangement into a group are facts which would 
not be disclosed if we confined our attention to each 
individual separately; and, when they act together, 
upon some common object — ^which may be one of them- 
selves, or some other person, as well as a non-human 
object — the combination of their actions is a fact that 
could not be observed by considering the individuals one 
at a time. 

The significance of group behavior is greatly increased 
in the case of human kind by the fact that some of the 
tendencies to action of the individual are related defi- 



SOCIAL BEHAVIOR 179 

nitely to other persons, and could not be aroused except 
by other persons acting as stimuH. An individual reared 
in entire isolation would not reveal his competitive ten- 
dencies, his tendencies towards the opposite sex, his 
protective tendencies towards children. Evidently we 
should never get an adequate picture of woman's 
nature unless we observed the mother with her child. 
This is the most striking instance of the general law that 
the traits of human nature do not fully manifest them- 
selves until the individual is brought into relationship 
with other individuals. 

Social psychology has then to consider both the be- 
havior of the individual as far as this is aroused and 
directed by the stimulus of other individuals, and the 
combination of the activities of individuals into group 
activity. In respect to the second of these general prob- 
lems, the province of social psychology can only with 
difficulty, if at all, be kept distinct from that of so- 
ciology. 

On the side of motive or drive, social behavior has 
long been a puzzle to the psychologist, since the motives 
that are most obviously present in the individual — apart 
from the parental instinct — are individualistic or self- 
seeking. In society, the individual submits to some 
limitation of his self-seeking tendencies, and the puzzle 
has been, to find the motive that led to this sub- 
missiveness. 

One of the first to attempt a solution of this problem 
was Hobbes, the English royalist philosopher of the time 
of Charles I and Cromwell. He could discover nothing 
in man's native tendencies to limit self-seeking, and 
taught that the natural state of mankind would accord- 



i8o DYNAMIC PSYCHOLOGY 

ingly be a 'bellum omnium contra omnes', a state of 
unlimited aggressiveness. But such a state of war would 
defeat its own end, since no one could rest secure even 
of his life, and therefore it was an elementary require- 
ment of the nature of things that men should limit their 
individual self-seeking, and come to some understand- 
ing with one another by which a modicum of individual 
security and welfare should be reached. Stated in terms 
of native tendencies, this means, as Wallas has pointed 
out in his critique of the older social psychology,^ that 
social behavior is motived by fear— fear for one^s own 
life and well-being because of the aggression of other 
men seeking the same things for themselves. 

It would not indeed be necessary to suppose that this 
fear is present as an active emotion in every dealing of 
man with his fellows. A limitation of self-seeking, en- 
gendered at first by calculating fear, would become 
habitual and automatic. The actual aggression being 
suppressed by the authority submitted to by a group of 
men because of the power of that authority to suppress 
aggression, there would develop a 'negative adaptation' 
to the presence of other men, just as a kitten becomes 
accustomed to the presence of a dog in the house, and 
ceases to fear him. 

Such an interpretation of social behavior, however 
consistently a Hobbes may work it out, and however 
appropriate it may appear in certain disordered states 
of society, is almost instinctively rejected by any one of 
strong social tendencies. It leaves no room for any 
positive attraction towards social intercourse, but would 
make the fellow-man a danger or at the best a neutral- 

* In The Great Society. 



SOCIAL BEHAVIOR l8i 

ized danger to be regarded with indifference; whereas 
the fact Is, without doubt, that society affords a positive 
satisfaction to the majority of men. Love of company Is 
a fact to be reckoned with In any attempt to analyze 
and derive the social motives. 

The eighteenth century, with Its greater security and 
prosperity, offered a milder substitute for this hard 
social psychology of the seventeenth. Jeremy Bentham 
and others taught that man, seeking his own welfare, 
found he could best obtain It by working for the welfare 
of his fellows. Instead of making what he wanted him- 
self, he made what his neighbor required, and was then 
able to exchange products with his neighbor to their 
mutual advantage. Perception of the economic advan- 
tage of society was the basis of society. This Interpreta- 
tion, while recognizing no native drive towards social 
behavior, but only a motive acquired as the result of 
experience, does at least leave room for a positive at- 
tractiveness of society. My neighbor Is no longer simply 
a potential danger more or less restrained by authority, 
but he Is the source of benefit to me and becomes con- 
nected in my mind with that benefit, so as to arouse In 
me a positive reaction and not simply avoidance or In- 
difference. Yet this economic derivation of the social 
motive Is still unsatisfactory. It leaves the matter 
about as follows : I desire certain goods for my private 
consumption, and, having found that I can secure these 
from my neighbor If I will In turn provide him something 
he desires for his private consumption, I willingly be- 
come and remain a member of a society which makes 
such mutual help possible. 'You help me get what I 
want, and I'll help you get what you want'. But when 



l82 DYNAMIC PSYCHOLOGY 

the question is raised, what it is we want, and an answer 
sought in the use made of the goods obtained by mutual 
exchange, we find that the consumption is not so strictly 
private as the 'mutual help' conception requires. Be- 
yond the minimum required for the maintenance of life, 
a large share of consumption has a social character. 
Veblen^ has emphasized this social character of con- 
sumption in rather cynical fashion by calling it 'con- 
spicuous waste'; and Taussig ^ has called attention to 
the fact that the typical 'money-maker' does not amass 
goods to enjoy them in secret, but spends largely to 
outdo his rivals, and in other ways to win himself pres- 
tige and social recognition. His social behavior is not 
confined to working for others that they may work for 
him, and his social motive is not simply the desire for 
private consumption; for he shows in consumption as 
well as in production a social interest, not accounted for 
by Bentham. His satisfactions are social, as well as the 
means by which he reaches them. The selfish needs 
which he labors to gratify turn out to be needs for social 
intercourse and recognition. Society is not simply a 
means for him, but an end as well. 

In the latter part of the nineteenth century another 
conception of the social force was put forward, first per- 
haps by Bagehot, most eloquently by Tarde, most 
psychologically, perhaps, by Baldwin. They believed 
they had found the socializing force in imitation. What 
characterizes a given social group in distinction from 
other groups is community of customs and manners, 

^ In his Theory of the Leisure Class and his Imperial Germany and the 
Industrial Revolution. 

2 In Inventors and Money-makers. 



SOCIAL BEHAVIOR 183 

beliefs, feelings, and purposes. This agreement between 
individuals in a group goes far beyond the scope of in- 
stinctive behavior, and must be due to the influence of 
one individual upon another, of the older generation 
upon the younger, and of the group acting as a mass on 
the individuals composing it. One individual patterns 
his conduct, beliefs, and sentiments on those of another 
individual, or on those prevailing in the group. By imi- 
tation of what is current in a group, custom and tradi- 
tion are maintained, imitation here acting as a conserva- 
tive agency. By imitation of an individual possessing 
prestige by virtue of his eminence in some respect, new 
manners and beliefs may be spread throughout a group, 
or transmitted from one group to another, and thus 
progress also is brought about by imitation. A large 
body of facts of social behavior was thus subsumed 
under a single general law. 

The mechanism of imitation was conceived after the 
analogy of reflex action. An individual performing a 
certain act in the presence of another was the stimulus 
evoking a like act in that other, the brain being so con- 
stituted that such a stimulus led inevitably, or at least 
easily, to such a response. The imitative mechanism 
was possessed by animals as well as men. It was at this 
point — in animal behavior — that the imitation psychol- 
ogy was first put to the test. 

Do animals learn by imitation? This was the ques- 
tion asked. In his experiments on the learning of cats, 
dogs, and monkeys, Thomdike arranged to have an 
animal already trained in a certain trick perform it in 
the presence of an untrained animal. A cat that had 
learned to get out of a cage was placed in the cage with 



i84 DYNAMIC PSYCHOLOGY 

an untrained cat — or the two might be placed in similar 
cages side by side. The trained cat promptly went 
through the proper motions and got out. This was re- 
peated many times before the new cat was tried to see 
whether it had learned the trick, or would now learn it 
more quickly than a cat without this experience. The 
result was negative; there was no evidence of learning 
by imitation; and this was true even of the monkey, 
commonly held to be a very imitative animal — so held, 
perhaps, because its behavior so much resembles that of 
human beings. Later experiments by other investigators 
have failed to modify this negative conclusion in any im- 
portant respect, though there is evidence that the higher 
or anthropoid apes occasionally derive benefit from 
watching their fellows perform a trick. The song of birds 
is in some respects an exception. In general, imitation 
appears not to afford a means by which animals learn. 
With children, though it is clear that they pick up a 
great deal from older persons, it is not at all clear that 
they learn much by mere imitation. That is to say, it 
is not clear that the imitative tendency which the child 
certainly shows frees him at all from the necessity of 
learning by trial and error. Learning to talk is a case in 
point. The elements of vowel and consonantal produc- 
tion being provided, as was said before, by native equip- 
ment, the selection and combination of these instinctive 
movements into the words and phrases of a language 
being just as clearly in some sense an imitative process, 
it is none the less true that the child's early attempts at 
imitating spoken words are very imperfect, and that he 
has to go through a long trial and error process before 
he speaks as those around him speak. He imitates 



SOCIAL BEHAVIOR 185 

models, but must learn to do it. He has no reflex 
mechanisms insuring correct imitation, but apparently 
a natural tendency to try to imitate, along with the 
ability to perceive the act imitated with sufficient pre- 
cision to serve as a check on the correctness of his at- 
tempts at imitation. 

What is meant here by 'ability to perceive* requires 
a little elucidation. It may be made clear by reference 
to two somewhat peculiar instances of imitation. 

The spectators of a football game may often be ob- 
served, by any one who, with an interest in human be- 
havior, turns his attention from the players to the 
audience, to execute themselves some of the movements 
of the players, especially at critical moments. When 
the full back is making a rather deliberate kick, the feet 
of some of the audience may be observed to make a kick- 
like movement. This appears like an especially good 
instance of purely reflex imitation, since the movement 
is entirely unintentional and to no purpose, and often 
unconscious. A little further observation, however, 
introduces difficulty; since it may happen, when the 
player's movement is delayed beyond the moment when 
it is expected, that the movement of the spectator's foot 
precedes that of the player. In such a case, the spec- 
tator's movement is clearly not imitative in the strict 
sense, since the reaction comes before the supposed 
stimulus. Evidently the spectator's movement depends 
on an understanding of the situation and a perception of 
the requirement for a certain movement, and equally on 
an interest that the movement shall be performed, since 
it is the kick of a player on one's chosen side that is 
thus, as it were, helped along by the spectator. 



1 86 DYNAMIC PSYCHOLOGY 

The other case was named by Baldwin 'delayed imi- 
tation'. The imitative reaction occurs, not directly 
after the movement imitated, but after an interval that 
may be one of hours or days. The following is an 
example that came under my own observation. A boy 
of three years, accompanying his father to a friend's 
house, heard his father greeted on entrance by *' Hello, 
Dodger !"^ — a nickname not previously used in the child's 
presence. The child did not imitate this greeting at the 
time, but the next day, when the father entered the 
house, the child called out, ''Hello, Dodger!" Though 
this is, in a broad sense, an imitative reaction, it did 
not conform to the reflex type. Evidently the child had 
observed with interest the nickname as spoken by the 
father's friend, and he had also perceived the social 
situation — the father entering a house and being greeted 
in a certain way; and on the recurrence of a similar 
social situation, the child makes the response that he 
had formerly noted and connected with the situation, 
the mere motor act being already well within the child's 
power. Imitation in children depends, perhaps always, 
on a perception of the act imitated, with some degree of 
understanding and with previously acquired power to 
execute the act. That is to say that the child's imita- 
tion, far from conforming to the simple reflex type, in- 
volves a certain intellectual activity, while also it does 
not free the child from the necessity of learning an act 
new to him by a process of trial and error. But what I 
wish especially to emphasize is the imitation motive. 
There exists in the child at a certain early age, and in 
some degree later as well, a tendency to imitate, a drive, 
easily aroused, towards performing acts like those per- 



SOCIAL BEHAVIOR 187 

ceived in other persons, especially in persons that possess 
for the child a degree of prestige. The imitating child, 
or youth or adult, is not a purely passive mechanism, 
but contains a drive towards imitation that can readily 
be aroused to activity. The child likes to imitate, this 
liking being part of his general social orientation. The 
objection to the imitation psychology, as usually taught, 
is that it makes of imitation a ready-made reflex mech- 
anism, while it fails to recognize the drive towards 
imitation, or the drive towards social perception and 
behavior generally. 

Besides imitation of movements, the imitation psy- 
chology recognized also an imitation of beliefs, feelings, 
and purposes. 

The imitation of beliefs went by the name of sugges- 
tion, and the main element in the conception of sugges- 
tion was the passivity of the recipient. He was sup- 
posed, in adopting the beliefs of the social medium, to 
be very much in the condition of the hypnotized sub- 
ject, who accepts what is told him without the normal 
degree of resistance or criticism, and is thus liable to 
induced hallucinations and similar absurdities. The 
absence of normal resistance is, I think, the distinguish- 
ing mark of suggestion in strongly marked instances 
such as those occurring in hypnosis. Now it is true 
that beliefs are frequently adopted from other persons 
without much resistance or examination; but it is not 
true that the recipient is purely passive, for here again, 
I believe, we can detect the presence of a social motive. 
We like to agree with the views expressed by another 
person, and especially by a group of persons. There is 
a sense of comfort and satisfaction in thus agreeing, 



I88 DYNAMIC PSYCHOLOGY 

while independence or opposition, to which also there 
is a natural tendency, is a more strenuous attitude. Let 
two persons, just made acquainted, be attracted towards 
each other and begin to be friends: what we find them 
doing is to exchange views; and if they find themselves 
in agreement, they experience a satisfaction that is quite 
exhilarating. People with the same view gravitate 
together, and a group of like-thinking persons is emi- 
nently satisfactory to its members until they become 
negatively adapted to one another. There is, then, an 
easily aroused drive towards accepting beliefs held by 
one's associates, and the process is by no means so 
passive as it has often been represented. 

The same criticism can be passed on the current con- 
ception of sympathetic induction of the emotions, as 
presented especially by McDougall. The expression of 
emotion by one person is supposed to act as a stiniulus 
on another person, arousing the like emotion in him; 
and this second person has been conceived as purely 
receptive or passive in the process. The examples cited 
are such as these: when one child cries, another, hear- 
ing the cry, begins to cry himself; when we hear or see 
some one laughing, we feel like laughing ourselves; and 
anger and fear are similarly contagious. These exam- 
ples, when closely scrutinized, appear somewhat doubt- 
ful evidence, and certainly require further investigation 
before they can be accepted at their face value. It often 
happens that two children become tired or hungry at 
about the same time, and begin to cry together because 
affected alike by these stimuli to weeping rather than by 
induction from one to the other. Or it may happen 
that when one child is punished and cries, the other. 



SOCIAL BEHAVIOR 189 

knowing from experience that his turn is coming, reacts 
to this anticipation. In many cases, a child is in no way 
moved to weeping by the presence of another child cry- 
ing, but rather to interested observation or even to joy. 
Where there seems, at first sight, to be a sympathetic 
induction of woe, there is a good chance, as illustrated 
above, either that a common cause is acting upon the 
two individuals, or that the second individual to be 
affected is reached, not by the direct sensory stimulus 
of the other's expression, but by way of associations 
formed in previous experience. The same possibilities, 
or very similar ones, have to be reckoned with in the 
cases of induced laughter, anger, or fear. 

It is, then, open to considerable doubt whether ready- 
made mechanisms exist in our native equipment which 
are directly aroused by the sight of emotion so as to pro- 
duce the same emotion in the beholder. But what is 
certainly true, here as in the analogous cases of imitation 
and suggestion, is that we have a liking to have others 
feel as we do and to feel as others do. This is distinctly 
'more sociable' than for one of two companions to be 
merry while the other is sad, or for one to be vexed at 
something which leaves the other unmoved. Com- 
panionship is more companionable, more successful, 
when emotions are 'shared'. The desire for companion- 
ship involves a desire for sympathy and a desire to be 
sympathetic. In other words, the individual in whom 
an emotion is induced is not a mere passive mechanism, 
but contains within himself a drive towards sympathetic 
emotion ; and it is often by way of this drive, rather than 
by a direct and mechanical induction, that the emotional 
state comes to be shared by a group of companions. 



190 DYNAMIC PSYCHOLOGY 

Quite in line with induction of actions (imitation), 
of beliefs (suggestion), and of emotions (sympathy), is 
induction of purposes, often referred to under the cap- 
tion of *mob mind'. The imitation psychologists 
pointed out that an individual was often infected by a 
crowd of which he was a member with purposes repug- 
nant to his individual habits and predilections. This, it 
was explained, was due to the overpowering force of a 
mass of men. The individual became a mere passive 
mechanism played upon by the crowd. Same criticism 
as above : the individual is not passive, for a drive within 
him is aroused. He likes to have the same purpose as his 
fellows In the group. Far from being bereft of purpose 
and converted into a passive machine, he is intensely 
purposeful at such times. Besides the primitive drives 
of fear and anger that are sometimes aroused, definite 
objects to be attained are often present in the 'mob 
mind', such as : to put out a fire, to move a heavy object, 
to capture a runaway cow or induce a balky horse to 
start, to raise an anchor, sail a schooner, or to do a 
thousand things where a crew or gang work together. 
To be sure, it is stretching the use of words to call all 
these aggregations of men 'mobs' ; but it is still more out 
of place to use the mob, properly so called, as the best 
type of all group activity. The panic-stricken mob, in 
particular, is a poorly chosen case for the type, since in 
a panic it Is 'every man for himself, and group activity 
is abolished. Overwhelming anger also is likely to cause 
group action to degenerate into a 'free for all fight', in 
which each Individual is engaged with some individual 
opponent. In the same way, while sex attraction cer- 
tainly furnishes part of the motive for various social 



SOCIAL BEHAVIOR . 191 

activities, intensification of the sex motive causes the 
group to break up into couples. Group activity, in 
short, is best reaHzed when none of these elemental 
drives is all-dominant. But the main point is that 
group activity has an attraction of its own, so that it is 
a satisfaction to the individual to engage in it. To act 
with others toward a common end is not, human nature 
being what it is, to be a mere wheel playing a passive 
part in the operation, but involves the Awakening of a 
drive towards the common goal and of an interest in 
joint action. 

The great deficiency of the imitation school of social 
psychology is thus that it pictures the individual as 
passive over against his fellows or his group, and fails 
to recognize his liking for agreement with his fellows in 
belief, emotion, purpose, and action. It fails to observe 
in the individual a drive towards sociability, though 
this tendency is certainly evident enough when we direct 
our attention away from tribes and nations to com- 
panionships and small friendly groups. To this point 
we shall return, after first taking note of the very 
significant effort of McDougall to develop a social psy- 
chology on a more adequate psychological basis. 

McDougall begins ^ by making an inventory, already 
quoted under our heading of 'native equipment', of the 
instinctive tendencies of man, from which are derived 
in the course of experience all the motives that produce 
human activity. 

He then proceeds to trace the effect of experience in 
compounding these innate tendencies and attaching 
them to specific objects; and finally endeavors to show 

^ Introduction to Social Psychology. 



192 DYNAMIC PSYCHOLOGY 

how social behavior springs from these native ten- 
dencies and their compounds. He makes a good deal 
here of the parental instinct and of the instinct of pug- 
nacity, but stresses especially the instincts of self-asser- 
tion and submission, from which, indeed, he attempts to 
trace almost the whole development of moral conduct. 
In his first and v/holly untutored condition, the indi- 
vidual simply obeys his instincts. The first modification 
of this instinctive behavior arises from the pleasant: or 
painful results of instinctive action ; ^but behavior so 
modified has as yet no socip' haracter. This begins to 
appear from the effects of reward and punishnient ad- 
ministered by other persons, leading the individual to 
modify his conduct so as to get the one and avoid the 
other. A higher stage of social behavior is reached when 
the individual is sensitive to the praise or blame of other 
people. To be appreciative of praise or blame implies a 
submissive attitude in the individual. It is the praise 
and blame of his superiors, or of the social group, that 
influences him. Meanwhile, his self-assertive tendency 
is by no means dormant, but, as he grows up, he shakes 
off the domination of those who were at first his 
superiors, and finds new superiors in the wider world. 
Nearly always, the social gruup retains its ascendency 
over him, though some individuals, of strong self-asser- 
tive (self-respecting) tendencies, after experience of the 
divergent codes of conduct prevalent in different groups, 
develop codes of their own, and act according to them 
even in opposition to the praise or blame of their social 
environment. This self-governed conduct, according 
to McDougall, is the highest and only true type of 
morality. 



SOCIAL BEHAVIOR I93 

McDougall's work represents a very definite advance 
in social psychology, and the general conclusion that 
behavior depends on native tendencies, which, how- 
ever, become combined so that mixed motives are the 
rule in adult action, is almost sure to stand. But 
McDougall has so far given us only a sketch, and it 
would be a serious mistake to accept it as a complete 
picture, or to let Its omissions go unchallenged. 

One thing that strikes you In reading McDougall's 
book is the little reference made to comradeship and 
other relationships betw' '^. equals, as compared with 
his constant use of the instincts of domination and sub- 
mission. He speaks, indeed, of sympathy between 
equals and its role In the development of friendship and 
mutual consideration; but he apparently sees little in 
the activity of a group of persons who are approximately 
on an equality with one another to give rise to morality, 
justice, and rules of conduct. The following Interesting 
passage Is quoted in order to show the author at his 
best, and at the same time to reveal his limitations. 

'All persons fall for the child Into one or other of two 
great classes ; In the one class are those who Impress him 
as beings of superior power, who evoke his negative 
self-feeling, and towards whom he Is submissive and 
receptive; in the other class are those whose presence 
evokes his positive self-feeling and towards whom he is 
self-assertive and masterful, just because they fail to 
impress him as beings superior to himself. As his powers 
develop and his knowledge increases, persons who at 
first belonged to the former class are transferred to the 
latter; he learns, or thinks he learns, the limits of their 
powers; he no longer shrinks from a contest with them, 



\ 

194 DYNAMIC PSYCHOLOGY 

and, every time he gains the advantage in any such con- 
test, their power of evoking his negative self-feehng 
diminishes, until it fails completely. When that stage 
is reached his attitude towards them is reversed, it 
becomes self-assertive; for their presence evokes his 
positive self-feeling. In this way a child of good capa- 
cities, in whom the instinct of self-assertion is strong, 
works his way up the social ladder. Each of the wider 
social circles that he successively enters — the circle of 
his playmates, of his school-fellows, of his college, of his 
profession — impresses him at first with a sense of a 
superior power, not only because each circle comprises 
individuals older than himself and of greater reputation, 
but also because each is in some degree an organized 
whole that disposes of a collective power whose nature 
and limits are at first unknown to the newly-admitted 
member. But within each such circle he rapidly finds 
his level, finds out those to whom he must submit and 
those towards whom he may be self-assertive. . . 
When he enters college, the process begins again; the 
fourth-year men, with their caps and their colors and 
academic distinctions, are now his gods, and even the 
dons may dominate his imagination. But at the end of 
his fourth year, after a successful career in the schools 
and the playing fields, how changed again is his attitude 
towards his college society! The dons he regards with 
kindly tolerance, the freshmen with hardly disguised dis- 
dain, and very few remain capable of evoking his nega- 
tive self-feeling— perhaps a 'blue', or a 'rugger-inter- 
national', or a don of world-wide reputation; for the 
rest — ^he has comprehended them, grasped their limits, 
labelled them, and dismissed them to the class that min- 



SOCIAL BEHAVIOR 195 

isters to his positive self-feeling. And so he goes out 
into the great world to repeat the process and to carry 
it as far as his capacities will enable him to do. 

'But if once authority, wielding punishment and re- 
ward, has awakened negative self -feeling and caused its 
incorporation in the self-regard ing sentiment, that emo- 
tion may be readily evoked; and there is always one 
power that looms up vaguely and largely behind all 
individuals — the power of society as a whole — which, 
by reason of its indefinable vastness, is better suited 
than all others to evoke this emotion and this attitude. 
The child comes gradually to understand his position as 
a member of a society indefinitely larger and more 
powerful than any circle of his acquaintances, a society 
which with a collective voice and irresistible power dis- 
tributes rewards and punishments, praise and blame, 
and formulates its approval and disapproval in univer- 
sally accepted maxims. This collective voice appeals to 
the self-regarding sentiment, humbles or elates us, calls 
out our shame or self-satisfaction, with even greater 
effect than the personal authorities of early childhood, 
and gradually supplants them more and more.* ^ 

Now while all this is true and highly pertinent, it 
gives a very incomplete account of the social attitude of 
the boy or man towards his fellows. If the instincts of 
self-assertion and submission were the only ones operat- 
ive, we should expect to see the boy attempt to attach 
himself to a group of older boys, in order to gratify his 
submissive tendency, or to a group of younger boys in 
order to give free play to his self-assertion. Now we do, 
to some extent, observe the boy seeking the company 

'^ Social Psychology, 8th ed., 1914, pp. 194-196, 



196 DYNAMIC PSYCHOLOGY 

of older boys and taking a submissive attitude towards 
them — a fact which is good evidence of the reaHty of 
the submissive tendency. But as a rule boys seek the 
company of boys of about the same age and prowess. 
They apparently derive most satisfaction from playing 
together as equals. Again, the social attitude of the 
college senior is far from completely expressed by saying 
that he has 'dismissed' most members of the college 
world 'to the class that ministers to his positive self- 
feeling* ; for this leaves out of account the fellowship of 
the seniors among themselves. It is interesting to 
watch a class of alumni at a reunion at the college after 
five or ten years in the world ; so far from seeking, each 
man to find his new level on the basis of accomplish- 
ment since graduation, their aim is to leave aside all 
such distinctions and get back to their old condition of 
equality. Within a profession, there is no doubt plenty 
of emulation, but at the same time there develops a class 
spirit, or sense of community of aim and outlook, that 
gives solidarity to the profession as against other groups. 
McDougall does not entirely overlook these facts, but 
he apparently finds little in them to his purpose. 
Society appears in his pages as an authority, impressing 
the individual with its vastness, and awakening in him 
a submissive attitude. It does not appear as anything 
interesting and attractive to the individual, except in- 
deed, in so far as the mere multitude attracts by virtue 
of the gregarious instinct. The latter is conceived 
simply as an impulse to herd together, and as satisfied 
by the mere presence of a multitude of other persons. 
Probably this is a proper limitation on the use of the 
term, 'gregarious instinct', but it is not by any means 



SOCIAL BEHAVIOR 197 

true that the social impulse is thus limited. There is an 
impulse to act together, as well as to be together. Let 
a number of children be brought together; their demands 
are not fully met by simply being together, but they 
want to do something; nor are they satisfied by each 
doing something on his own account in the mere pres- 
ence of other children. Their demand is to play to- 
gether, to engage in some sort of group activity. The 
group activity in which they engage has no ulterior 
motive — such as the fear motive or the economic mo- 
tive — but it is interesting to the participants for its 
own sake. This behavior of children is typical of society 
in general. Society, we should not forget, is essentially 
activity or behavior; it is an activity rather than a con- 
dition. And the social motive is the tendency to engage 
in group activity, which is interesting and satisfying to 
beings of a social nature. 

As typical an instance of social behavior as can be 
found is that of the game, whether of children or of 
adults. The game needs no ulterior motive, being in- 
teresting on its own account. Though play may be 
carried on by a solitary individual, group play is much 
preferred, probably because the activities possible in 
group activity are more varied and complex, and so offer 
more of interest, while the interplay of different per- 
sonalities in a group game adds an element of particular 
interest to the participants. Except in the simplest 
games, there is some 'division of labor' among the play- 
ers, their actions being coordinated towards some com- 
mon end. Where the game is between opposing teams, 
the elements of rivalry and of loyalty to one's side add 
interest; and in proportion as 'team work' is realized, 



198 DYNAMIC PSYCHOLOGY 

the interest is enhanced. Thus a card game with part- 
ners is usually preferred to one in which every player is 
for himself. Ceremonies are close analogies of games, 
and the meaning which is supposed to underlie the 
ceremony but adds another element of interest, without 
detracting from the fact that the main interest is in 
the ceremony itself as a group activity. Where a given 
ceremony is common to several tribes, it often happens 
that the meaning attributed to it differs from one tribe 
to another — the real interest lies in the ceremony itself 
as a social activity, the 'underlying* conceptions being 
of less, though undoubtedly of some value. Even of the 
'practical' activities of groups of men much the same 
can be said, since, while an economic or other motive may 
be essential to get the activity started, this is lost sight 
of in the actual performance, and the interest that then 
dominates is that of group activity, much as in a game. 
One characteristic of a game is that the players are 
in certain important respects on terms of equality. 
This does not mean that different abilities to play the 
game do not have much to do with the playing, nor 
that, in the division of labor among the players, some 
may not be captains or otherwise assigned a dominating 
part. But it means that inequalities extraneous to the 
game are not allowed to enter. The older or stronger 
child must not *play out of turn', but every one must 
have an equal chance to do as well as he can. Not in- 
frequently, a child will undertake to assert himself and 
have everything his own way ; but he is resisted by the 
others, on the ground that such behavior spoils the 
game and is 'no fair'. 'Rules of the game' grow up, with 
the object, in part, of enforcing equality between the 



SOCIAL BEHAVIOR 199 

players, and, more generally, with the object of insuring 
a good game. 

These 'rules of the game' deserve attention in connec- 
tion with the problem of morality. McDougall has 
sketched for us the development of moral conduct 
through the interplay of the self-assertive and submis- 
sive instincts, and makes the development culminate 
in the self-contained individual who is no longer sub- 
missive to the praise or blame of his social environment, 
because he has adopted a code for himself which he 
regards as superior to any that the group would enforce 
upon him. Such a character, though admirable in its 
integration, may be repellent in other respects, and the 
content of the code of morals needs to be examined be- 
fore the individual can be allowed to stand at the pin- 
nacle of moral excellence. McDougall says nothing of 
fair play or of justice, because these concepts have no 
place except between equals, or between those who are 
to be treated as equals in certain respects. It is not by 
domination and submission that justice is brought to 
light, but by resistance to domination and by the de- 
mand for equality. Fair play in a game is a type of just 
dealing in larger affairs. As children in their games 
resist the domineering individual and achieve fair play, 
so the history of larger affairs shows, I believe, that 
justice has been hammered out by resistance to dom- 
ination, and by threatening to break up the game unless 
certain rules are followed. If so, it is the relationship 
of equals, rather than that of superior and inferior, that 
has given content to the social code of conduct. 

The main criticism to be passed upon McDougall is 
that he fails to recognize a definitely social motive. He 



200 DYNAMIC PSYCHOLOGY 

recognizes several motives that contribute to social life 
by making one individual interested in other individ- 
uals, but he recognizes none that would make group 
activity interesting. Society appears in his pages as an 
authority controlling the individual, but not as an 
activity attractive to the individual. Possibly his fail- 
ure to notice the rather obvious fact that group action, 
either in a small or in a large way, is positively interest- 
ing and attractive, results from his general conviction 
that all human motives grow out of the list of instincts 
which he has given. An instinct he defines as having a 
definite stimulus and a definite reaction, and also a 
definite emotional state; and where he cannot find 
these three, he is undisposed to admit the presence of a 
native tendency capable of furnishing the driving force 
to action. What he here overlooks is the fact of native 
capacities, or rather, the fact that each native capac- 
ity is at the same time a drive towards the sort of 
activity in question. The native capacity for mathe- 
matics is, at the same time, an interest in things math- 
ematical, and in dealing with such things. This is 
clearly true in individuals gifted with a great capacity 
for mathematics. Gauss, so immersed in his original 
mathematical work that his attention could not be got 
away by hunger, or bodily fatigue, or the solicitations 
of his friends, was certainly not driven at such times by 
an economic motive, or a sex motive, or a self-regarding 
tendency; but by nothing else in the world than his 
interest in what he was doing. The musical composer, 
though sometimes needing the spur of economic need 
to get him started, is carried along, once he gets into 
the swing of the thing, by the musical interest, and not 



SOCIAL BEHAVIOR 201 

by the economic; and the same is true of any creative 
artist. Taussig, in his valuable study of Inventors and 
Money-Makers, makes it clear that inventing is an 
activity often engaged in for its own sake and without 
regard to the possible rewards. Veblen, in his Instinct 
of Workmanship, takes the same view in regard to handi- 
work or, in general, to the successful adaptation of 
means to ends. The fundamental drive toward a cer- 
tain end may be hunger, pugnacity, sex, or what not, 
but once the activity is started, the means to the end 
becomes an object of interest on its own account. 
Workmanship is ''an object of attention and sentiment 
in its own right. Efficient use of the means at hand, 
and adequate management of the resources available 
for the purposes of life is itself an end of endeavor, and 
accomplishment of this kind is a source of gratification." ^ 
The fact that interest develops not only in the ulterior 
end, but in the means to that end, can be seen in so 
simple a matter as the moving of a heavy stone. There 
is, of course, some motive of a practical sort motiving 
the attempt to move the stone; but once the job has 
been undertaken, it becomes a sort of game or con- 
test with the stone, and decidedly interesting to the 
performers, both in the process and in the successful 
issue — without regard to the ulterior object of the whole 
activity. Such activities as sailing a boat, driving a 
horse or automobile, chopping down a tree, are simp- 
ly striking cases of what is generally true, namely, 
that any activity, whether 'gainful' or not, provided 
only it is not positively disagreeable, may be entered 
upon as a sport or amusement, furnishing, that is to 

1 Veblen, pp. 31-32. 



202 DYNAMIC PSYCHOLOGY 

say, its ov^n drive. To sum up — almost any object, 
almost any act, and particularly almost any process or 
change in objects that can be directed by one's own 
activity towards some definite end, is interesting on its 
own account, and furnishes its own drive, once it is 
fairly initiated. To be interesting, the process must 
present some difficulty and yet some prospect of a suc- 
cessful issue. It would be a mistake to trace all this 
back to a special instinct of manipulation, though un- 
doubtedly the manipulative tendencies of young chil- 
dren are the first manifestation of this general type of 
interest, unless, indeed, it be the attention directed by 
them to various objects. The truth is, that, having 
native capacity for performing certain acts and dealing 
with certain classes of material, we are interested in per- 
forming these acts and handling this material; and 
that, once these activities are aroused, they furnish 
their own drive. This applies to abilities developed 
through training as well as to strictly native capacities. 
Almost anything may be made play and furnish its own 
motive. 

The social motive— and this is the main contention 
in this whole discussion — is inherent in social activity. 
Possessing, as he eminently does, the capacity for group 
activity, man is interested in such activity. He needs 
no ulterior motive to attract him to it. It is play for 
him. His interest in it comes partly from the interplay 
of personality (which he has a native capacity to appre- 
hend), partly from the coordination of the acts of sev- 
eral performers into one harmonious and well-directed 
action, partly from the spirit of rivalry that may be en- 
gendered between groups, and not least from the big 



SOCIAL BEHAVIOR 203 

enterprises that can be carried through by joint action. 
In short, the social interest is part and parcel of the 
general objective interest of man. 

The social motive is of the same order as the musical 
or the mathematical motive. Just as one who has the 
musical gift takes to music naturally and finds it inter- 
esting for its own sake, so the socially gifted individual 
understands other people, sees the possibilities of col- 
lective activity, and the ways of coordinating it, and 
enters into such doings with gusto. It would be ill- 
advised to speak of a social instinct underlying this be- 
havior; for the fact is not that nature provides a set 
of special ready-made movements to be called out by 
the presence of other persons. The social gift is a 
capacity for learning social behavior. Individuals differ 
in degree in the social gift, as in other capacities; some 
are capable of becoming creative artists or inventors 
along social lines; most men are followers here as else- 
where, yet have enough capacity to participate in group 
activities. 

The first sign of the social motive in the infant is his 
attention to other persons. The six-months baby gazes 
at faces in preference to any other object. Very early, 
too, he responds by vocal and other movements to the 
actions of other persons. A little later he reaches the 
so-called imitative stage, already discussed, of which 
the chief features are his growing ability to perceive and 
appreciate the actions of other persons and the results 
which they accomplish, and his tendency to attempt to 
make the same acts and reach the same results. The 
child is docile ; he likes to be told and to be shown ; and 
thus his curiosity about objects is mixed up with the 



204 DYNAMIC PSYCHOLOGY 

social motive. He is attracted to other persons in part 
because they satisfy his curiosity regarding a great 
variety of matters. If, as he grows older, his curiosity 
takes a scientific turn, it still remains bound up with the 
social motive. A science is distinctly a cooperative en- 
terprise, while at the same time it is one in which there is 
much emulation. It is much more satisfactory to the 
scientific worker to be in touch with his fellow-workers, 
to report his discoveries to them, and learn theirs in turn, 
than to labor in isolation. Thus, the scientific interest 
is reinforced by the social motive. Other interests are 
similarly reinforced — the esthetic interest, for example. 
Without doubt there is an interest in beautiful things 
without regard to the social factor; but it is equally true 
that an art, like a science, is a social enterprise, as we 
see from the fact that creators of art come in schools and 
movements rather than sporadically. The apprentice 
attaches himself to a school, learns its ideas and tech- 
nique, which, if himself a man of originality, he may 
then develop, and is likely to remain through life a de- 
voted adherent, and keenly interested in the accomplish- 
ment and advance of the school. 

Many drives combine to produce social activity. The 
fear motive drives men together in times of insecurity ; 
the pugnacity motive bands them together for group 
combat; the economic motive brings industrial co- 
operation and organization; the self-assertive and sub- 
missive tendencies bring emulation as well as obedi- 
ence; the expansion of the self to cover one's family, 
one's clique, one's class, one's country contributes to 
loyalty; while the parental instinct, expanding its 
scope to cover others besides children who are helpless, 



SOCIAL BEHAVIOR 205 

leads to self-sacrifice and altruism. But besides all 
these there is the social motive proper, the tendency 
toward group activity, which is not only found by ex- 
perience to be beneficial, but, what' is more important 
psychologically, is interesting in itself to creatures that 
have a native capacity for that sort of action. 

Recognition of the social motive affords a more ade- 
quate basis for social ethics than can be found in a 
psychology that attempts to derive group behavior from 
the self-seeking tendencies or even from the altruistic 
parental tendency. An ethics based on the self-seeking 
tendencies finds no better ideal than the superman, 
superior and unsubmissive to society. McDougall's 
ideal man is of this type — a self-contained individual 
with a self-selected moral code, regarding the content 
of which nothing definite is said or can be said. The 
altruistic tendency, though yielding conduct of admir- 
able quality, is inadequate because, at its furthest 
reach, it would simply make other individuals as per- 
fectly self-contained as the self-seeking tendencies 
would make oneself. Altruism is only incidentally 
social; it is concerned with 'my neighbor' as an indi- 
vidual, but not with group behavior. The socially 
estimable individual is rather one of social disposition 
and of public spirit than one notable for his altruistic 
and charitable impulses. Sociability has probably not 
received enough recognition as a virtue at the hands of 
ethics; and this from failure to observe a psychological 
basis for it. But once grant that group activity is 
interesting for its own sake, and we find a genuine 
social basis for ethics — the same basis, in fact, that we 
find for the rules of a game. Interest in the game im- 



206 DYNAMIC PSYCHOLOGY 

plies interest in well-coordinated and successful group 
action, and the rules of the game aim at that result. 
The rules of the game are not for the benefit of indi- 
viduals, but for the success of the game as a group 
activity. Fair play and justice have the same basis; 
they are not primarily for the advantage of individuals, 
but for the purpose of insuring harmonious group ac- 
tivity. 

Thus the old puzzle whether society exists for the 
good of the Individual, or the individual for the good of 
society, Is seen not to be a fair dilemma. If society Is 
essentially group activity, the organization of society 
has as Its object the furtherance of group activity. The 
value of society to the individual is not a derivative 
from other values, but arises directly from his capacity 
for social behavior and his strong drive towards social 
behavior. The best formula for social betterment, while 
It should not omit such contributions to purely indi- 
vidual values as organization can compass, and while 
It should certainly not set up the fiction of society as an 
entity superior to the Individuals composing it, would 
emphasize especially the Improvement of the conditions 
of group activity, with a view to making It more worthy 
of the efforts of the Individual, and more interesting and 
satisfying to him. 



INDEX 



Abnormal psychology, 13, I53ff 

Abulia, 164 

Acquired abilities, y/ff, 134 

Ach, 148 

Activity and rest, 50, 64 

Adaptation, 85f, iiSf, 134, 180 

Adrenal glands, 53f 

Altruism, 205 

Ambiguous figures, 114, ii8f, 135 

Analysis, 96ff 

Anger, 52ff, 65, 80, loif, 148, 174 

Animal magnetism, 15 

Animal psychology, 11, 25!?, 8 if, 
84ff, loyff, 1 1 if, i2of, 133, i83f 

Applied psychology, i6f 

Aristotle, 2 

Art, i72f 

Association, 8 iff, logfi; con- 
trolled, I23f 

Assumptions, I4if 

Attention, 49f, 69ff, 86, 88, 95, 
103, 109, ii3ff, 116, ii8f, I2iff, 
I25f, 128, 132, i35f, I4if, 144, 203 

Avoiding reactions, 48f, 85f, 108 

Bagehot, 182 
Bain, yi 
Baldwin, 182 
Beethoven, 128, 130 
Behaviorism, 33f, 42 
Bentham, 181 
Berkeley, 35 
Binet, 15 

Binocular vision, ii3f 
Book, 93, 144 
Braid, 16 
Bryan, 94 



Caesar, I29ff 

Cannon, 52ff, 149 

Capacity, native, 59ff, 69, 74ff 

Carr, 89 

Cattell, 12, 30 

Ceremonies, 198 

Charcot, 16 

Child psychology, ii, 47ff, 58, 64, 

67ff, 77, 80, 92, 96, 98, 103, 133, 

168, 184, 186, 188, I93fif, 203 
Conation, 56 
Conditioned reflex, 82, 88, 100, 

134, 161 
Conflict, 151, i6of, 167 
Consciousness, 2off, 35f, 42 
Control, losff, 147 
Coordination, 47, 92f, 99, 144 
Curiosity, 49f, 65, 67ff, 74, 103, 

109, 122, 170, 204 

Dancing, 173 

Darwin, 11, 131 

Defect, mental, I4f, I55ff 

Delayed imitation, 186 

Delusions, I57ff 

Dissociation, 84!!, 98 

Distraction, 7of, 148, 175 

Domination, instinct of, 51, 65, 171 

Donders, 7 

Dot figure, 115 

Dreams, i67f 

Drive, 36ff, 44, 58, 67H, looff, 

i2off, I32f, I49fl", 157, i6of, 164, 

i68ff, 179, 185, i86ff, I96f, 

i99£f, 204ff 
Dynamic psychology, 34, 36, 43, 

152, 176 



208 



INDEX 



Ebbinghaus, 10 
Educational psychology, 17 
Elimination, 84ff, loif 
Emotion, 5 iff, 188 
Esthetics, 8, ygf, 17 iff, 204 
Evolution, I if 

Experimental psychology, 6ff 
Exploration, 49, 87ff, 109, 113, 
121, 143 

Facilitation, 38ff, 160 

Faculties, 60 

Fatigue, 50, 119 

Fear, 48, 5iff, 56, 65, 80, 109, 164, 

180, 190 
Fechner, 7ff, 31 
Feeble-mindedness, 1 55ff 
Fixed ideas, 164 
Flexibility, I4iff, 147 
Folk psychology, I2f 
Food-getting, 48 
Franklin, 5, 16 
Free association, no 
Free will, 152 
Freud, 16, i66ff 

Galton, II f 

Gauss, 138, 200 

Geiger, 12 

Generalization, 143 

Genius, I28ff 

Gladstone, 12 

Goethe, 129, 132 

Gregarious instinct, 50, 66, 196 

Grief, 58, 80 

Habit, 63, 66, 73, 123, 137, 142, 

162; habit neurosis, 162 
Hall, Stanley, 11 
Harter, 94 
Helmholtz, 7, 9, 130 
Herbart, 8f 



Heredity, 11,45, 59 

Hicks, 89 

'Higher unit mechanisms', 92ff, 99, 

144 
History of psychology, iff 
Hobbes, 79f, i79f 
Hume, 3, 35 
Humor, 78ff 
Hypnotism, 15 
Hypotheses, 4, I4iff 
Hysteria, i63f 

Imitation, 66, i82ff 

Impulse, 54ff, 57f, 63ff, 169, 171 

Individual differences, 11 

Infantilism, i67f 

'inhibition', 38ff, 112, 160, I74f 

Instinct, 45, 56, 64ff, 200 

Interests, 74ff, io2ff, i32f, 20off 

Introspection, 3off 

Invention, 137 

Itard, 14 

James, William, i8f, 5if, 56, 132, 

146 
James-Lange theory, 55f 
Janet, 16, 162 
Jennings, 108 
Justice, 199, 206 

Lange, 5 if 

Language, 46, 49, 92, 184 

Lapses, i66ff 

Laughter, 57, 66, ryfi 

Law of effect, 91, 117 

Law of exercise, 91,117 

Learning, 73, 77ff, 133, 135 

Liebault, 16 

Locke, 2, 35, 82ff 

Locomotion, 49 

Love, i7off 



INDEX 



209 



Mark Twain, 78 

Maudsley, 14 

Maze experiments, 121 

McDougall, 56, 62ff, 67, yiff, 100, 

103, 188, iQiff, 199, 205 
'Mechanism', 36ff, 44, 61, 67!?, 93, 

100, 106, 120, 124, 149, 185 
Memory, 10, 96 
'Mental philosophy', 2, 7, 10 
Mental defect, I4f, 1551? 
'Mental set', 124 
Mental work, 123! 
Mesmer, 15 

Mixed motives, 100, i69ff 
Mob mind, i9of 
Morality, I99f 
Moreau de Tours, 14 
Morgan, 148 
Motives, 37f, 6iff, looff, I26f, 138, 

I49ff, i68ff, I79ff, 190, 199, 202ff 
Movement, 47 

M tiller, G. E., 96; Muller, Max, 12 
Music, 60, 67f, I72f, 200 

Napoleon, 130, 132 

'Native capacities', 59, 74f, 129, 

132, 200, 202f 
Native equipment of man, 44ff, 

61, 77, 134 
Native reactions, 48fif 
Negative adaptation, 85f, ii8f, 

134, 180 
Neuroses, i62ff 
Newton, 5, 128, 130, 131, 136 

Observation, 97, 121, 131 
Obstruction, 102, 137!?, I47ff, i6of 
Originality, I33ff 

Paranoia, I57fif 

Parental instinct, 50, 58, 66, 100, 
i7of 



Pathological psychology, 13, 64, 

I53ff 
Pawlow, 82 
Pearson, Karl, 12 
Peckham, 85 
Perception, 6, 95!?, 103, 109, 113, 

I20ff, 131, I35f, i85f 
Personality, I26f, 202 
Physiological psychology, 9 
Physiology, 4ff 
Pinel, 13 
Plateau, 5 

Play, 66, 104, 133, I97ff, 206 
Practice, 92ff 
Problem solution, I39ff 
Protozoa, 84, iii, 116 
Psychasthenia, i63ff 
Psychiatry, 13, 154 
Psychoanalysis, 167 
Psychopathology, 13, 64, 1531? 
Punishment, 89, 91 
Puzzle-box experiments, 27f, 9of, 

io7f 
Puzzle experiments, I39flf 

Reaction time, 7, 31 

Reading, 124 

Reaction, 106; compound, 92; 
learned, 77ff; native, 47ff; or- 
ganic, 5iff; preferred, iisff; 
preparatory and consummatory, 
4off, 55ff, 91, 138, 175; varied, 
io8ff, 118, 140, 143 

Reasoning, I45f, 149 

Reciprocal inhibition, iioff 

Reflex, 1 1 if, 183; compound, 112; 
conditioned, 82, 88, 134, 161 

Reinforcement, 38fif, 12 if 

Resistance 

Rivalry, binocular, 114, 11 8f 

Romanes, 11 

Ruger, 139 



210 



INDEX 



Sagacity, I46f 

Scott, 26 

Seguin, 14 

Selection, I23ff 

Sensation, 5ff, 2 iff, 28f, 47 

Sentiments, 100 

Sexual impulse, i68ff 

Shakespeare, 128, 129, i3of 

Sherrington, 40, 112 

Sociability, 180, 182, i86ff, I96ff, 

205 
Social betterment, 206 
Social motive, 2p2ff 
Social psychology, 62ff, I77ff 
Spalding, 26; Spaulding, 81 
Specialization, 45, 59, 68f, 74f, 

I29f, 203 
Staircase figure, 114 
Sublimation, 167, I75f 
Submission, instinct of, 51, 65, 

171, 204 
Substitute reaction, i6iff 
Suggestibility, 66, i87f 
Suppression, i67f, I74f 
Syllogism, 145 
Sympathy, 66, i88f; sympathetic 

nervous system, 53, 56 
Synthesis, 99 



Tarde, 182 

Taussig, 182, 201 

Tendencies, 62 ff, 100, 120, I25ff, 

I37f. I49ff, i68ff 
Thinking, io9f, 139, i45f 
Thorndike, 11, 26, 27, 9of, i83f 
'Trial and error', 9of, 140, 143, 

145, i6of, 165, 184, 186 
Triplett, 86f 
'Types', 163 
Typewriting, 93, 144, 148 

Unconscious, the, i67f 

Veblen, 182, 201 
'Voluntary attention', 70 

Wallas, 180 

Watson, 29, 91 

Weber, 6; Weber's Law, 6 

Wheatstone, 5 

Will, I47ff 

Wundt, 8f, 55 

Yerkes, 87f 

Young, 5 

Youth, i3of, 170, 173, 194 



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